Austin | Historic Images & Postcards

[cvalkan]

Other things that might have been mentioned: the Holiday House, Inner Sanctum Records, the Silver Dollar (off Burnet IIRC), You Scream Ice Cream. I think I miss AquaFest the most.

[lzppjb]

My great-great-grandfather is buried downtown in the Oakwood Annex. My granny was born in Driftwood in 1908. Her dad helped build the store there. She told stories of being in Austin in the early 30s, working as a carhop and riding on the backs of motorcycles up and down Congress with the trollies.

My grandmother on the other side was an Austin grad Class of '44. She was born on Willow. Her dad was a bit of an arborist, I guess. Many of the pecan trees in East Austin were spliced by his hand. Not sure if those trees are still alive. Her husband, my grandpa, was also born on Willow.

[The ATX]

Originally Posted by the Genral

And there were no shortages of people giving Austin history lessons, especially the ones who resented transplants from NY like me. Unlike today, there were quite a few locals who did not appreciate yankees infiltrating their territory. Three weeks after I got here in January '81, I got my ass kicked at a redneck biker bar on 183 just north of Burnet Rd just because 3 guys at the bar didn't like my New Yawk accent...and then they kicked over my Suzuki motorcycle just for good measure. I remembering wiping the dirt off me, licking my wounds, picking up my bike and saying to myself..."welcome to Austin!". I quickly learned to drop the NY accent and started saying...fixin, howdy, and ya'll, ripped the yellow NY tags off my car, and never had a problem again. Rednecks back then were so gullable I want to say the bar was called the Good Times. Ironic... Does anyone remember Cardi's off Burnet Rd north of IBM?
But my holyshit, this is a cool f'en city moment came with my first Aquafest and the crazy, and I mean crazy raft race. You will never see anything like it on Town Lake ever again. You could be a spectator and still have a blast. Maybe someone has a picture they could post of it here. I'd love to see it...

The resentment toward "Yankees" back then was way worse than the anti-Californian sentiment of today. I remember Cardi's. It was outside of Austin's city limits at the time in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. But it was actually between where MOPAC and the Hospital are today near Parmer Lane. It was torn down for the MOPAC right of away. MOPAC replaced Burnet/FM1325 at that location, and Parmer Lane was an undeveloped two lane country road that ended right there at Burnet.

[LoneStarMike]

I found a pretty good photo thread on a General Motors forum of all places. Some of the photos have been posted here, but there were many I'd never seen before.

Great old pics, Austin Texas


There were two that I really liked and had to save to my own hard drive.

The first was the model of what Robert Mueller Municipal Airport was supposed to look like.



I don't know what the black hole in the roof was all about, and I don't think I've ever seen any subsequent photos after Mueller was built that had that "diamond" section midway through the passenger concourse.

The second one was the night photo of Congress Avenue (in color) taken around Christmas in 1960. I tried to clean that one up a little. It shows an Austin Goodyear on the northeast corner of Congress and 1st.





Was that Goodyear place there until construction on One Congress Plaza began? I can't remember.

[LoneStarMike]

Originally Posted by BevoLJ

A cool little thing I put together from some stuff I found...

Austin


1970's


http://barkingcarnival.fantake.com/2...-vs-ucla-1970/

I found a bigger version of that exact same photo over on TexasFreeway.com

The original Riverside overpass was still in place, and there were only two northbound lanes on IH-35. The feeder roads did not extend over Town Lake.

There's also one from July 1972 of IH35 near 15th St.

This view shows the original freeway at 15th Street, prior to the expansion to 8 lanes. The old Brackenridge hospital is clearly visible on the right. It was demolished in the late 1970's.

link to high-resolution photo

[Mopacs]

Originally Posted by LoneStarMike

I found a bigger version of that exact same photo over on TexasFreeway.com

Ah yes... that's my old postcard that I scanned and submitted to Texasfreeways. I think it was taken around 1971 or 1972. Kevin can probably confirm.

Edit: That's a very impressive view of the capitol and one CVC I wouldn't mind having in place (from I-35 at Riverside). Of course it was already too late at that point, with the federal building partially blocking it.

[KevinFromTexas]

That seems about right. I would say 1972 or 1973. You can see the Stephen F. Austin state office building. It's the large building that's partially hidden to the left of the UT Tower. That one was finished in 1973. Southwest Tower was also finished that year, (white building with black windows on left). There's also a tower crane in the upper right working on one of those UT highrises. I think it's the construction for the Jester Center since it was finished in 1973. It would have been visible just to the right of that state office building.

[hookem]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

That seems about right. I would say 1972 or 1973. You can see the Stephen F. Austin state office building. It's the large building that's partially hidden to the left of the UT Tower. That one was finished in 1973. Southwest Tower was also finished that year, (white building with black windows on left). There's also a tower crane in the upper right working on one of those UT highrises. I think it's the construction for the Jester Center since it was finished in 1973. It would have been visible just to the right of that state office building.

That's amazing Kevin. The city should hire you! I don't think there is another person in this city who could identify and date a photo so accurately just using their knowledge of what building is what and when it was built. I mean, the tower crane is barely a shadow in that picture, but if you know what you are looking at, there is no question that it is there. I doubt any of the top city employees or even the council members could even come close to dating a photo like that. Very impressive.

[KevinFromTexas]

Thanks. I've been collecting building heights and dates for Austin for about 20 years now. I started when I was a young teenager. I knew the dates for those buildings, but I also used Google Earth to plot the sight line in the postcard to figure out which UT highrise that crane was working on. The Robert Lee Moore Hall was finished in 1974, and it's basically directly behind where that crane would be. Of course it was finished a year after the Jester Center was, so assuming it had been the Robert Lee Moore Hall, you should have been able to see the Jester Center sticking up, but since you can't, I assumed it must be the construction for the Jester Center.

I collect postcards myself and also collect old photos mostly from the internet that show the city from way back. And of course books and just about anything else that shows Austin.

I am still missing some building dates. Out of 171 highrise buildings that I have heights for now, I'm missing dates for 9 of them. 6 of those are those IBM office buildings near Burnet & Mopac. The other 3 are the John H. Winters state office building at 51st & Guadalupe, the Tarlton Law Library on the UT Campus, and the Travis County Jail. I know that the old jail building predates the taller Blackwell-Thurman building adjacent to it. Google Earth shows an image from 1995 and it's visible in it.

[KevinFromTexas]

Here are some of those skipper pins from Aqua Fest. I have the aqua colored one - 4th one down on the 2nd row to the right.


South Austin Memories - Via Facebook

[KevinFromTexas]

1969 postcard:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Post...item2580ccb8c9

The Commodore Perry Hotel before it became an office building in the 80s and then "Brazos Lofts" about 10 years ago.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Commodore-Pe...item485866be6b

"Vintage" postcard from 1980-1990. It seems to be from about 1989/1990. Notice they were starting construction on the convention center. It was finished in 1992.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-1980...item4ac8346551

Capitol/Congress 1955. The tall white building facing Congress on the right is the old 1880s Travis County Courthouse. It was torn down in 1964.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Austin-TX-Do...item5d42e74b2c

Congress Avenue - 1960s.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Austin-Texas...item58a37c36dd

Riverfront skyline from sometime in the 50s.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Old-Postcard...item19e0dcbee7

Driskill Annex postcard from 1956.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1956-AUSTIN-...item5d42f60bdc

Hyatt Regency postcard from the early 80s. That crane in the background was probably working on the Towers of Town Lake. The Hyatt was finished in 1981, and the Towers of Town Lake were completed in 1983, so they would have been starting construction sometime in 1981.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hyatt-Regenc...item5656e308e6

Town Lake skyline from sometime in the late 50s/early 60s.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pre-1980-FIS...item4ac7a22f67

[LoneStarMike]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Capitol/Congress 1955. The tall white building facing Congress on the right is the old 1880s Travis County Courthouse. It was torn down in 1964.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Austin-TX-Do...item5d42e74b2c

This building?

They must have already taken off the ornate roof parts & the clock by 1955. I wonder what year they did that?

The building just south of it with the horizontal green sign (I can't make out the first word) but it says something Duval Dance Studio.

And I see that there was a Sears downtown. (building on lower left)

[KevinFromTexas]

Yeah, that's the one. I'm not sure what year they took down the turrets. I remember reading that it had become too expensive to maintain. I don't know how long it was in the county's hands either before it was demolished. That property today is still just a parking lot. I'm not sure if the county still owns the land or not.

[migol24]

Had Austin's old buildings been fully preserved Austin would have looked like a mini San Francisco without the steep hills.

[LoneStarMike]

OK these aren't buildings or skyline shots, but they do pertain to Austin History, so I'm posting them anyway.

I never knew that Channel 36 originally started in 1965 as KHFI TV, although I do remember radio station KHFI. (K98) I listened to that station a lot when I first moved here. By then, KHFI TV which originally was broadcast on Channel 42. On January 15, 1973, the changed their call letters to KTVV and moved to Channel 36.

Here's an ad I found from the March 1973 issue of Texas Monthly commemorating the event:




A couple of youtube clips:

The first was the morning news broadcast from February 1, 1985 - a Friday IIRC. They were predicting a 60% chance of snow later that afternoon and boy did it ever.

• Video Link

I wish they had the evening news coverage from that day after it had started snowing, but I can't find it on youtube.

The second clip is a "Come Home to 36" promo from the fall of 1986. The two anchors and the weatherman all look so familiar to me, but I can only remember the name of the female anchor - Tonia Cooke.

• Video Link

Does anyone remember the name of the male anchor and the weatherman?

[the Genral]

I don't know their names, but how 'bout that computer equipment and the anchor ladies hair! My how things have changed...if I recall, the early 80's produced some of the coldest temperatures we had, like down to 5 degrees. I lived in a mobile home back then at 79 and 183, and my pipes froze solid. I have video of the snow mentioned on the news clip, about 4 to 5 inches worth. Great find Mike.

[LoneStarMike]

Here's another good historic video from 1986.

• Video Link

This was during the great newscaster swap. Tonia Cooke had gone over to Adelaide Australia for a week and one of their news anchors (Anne Fulwood) came here. The above video is from the Australian News Channel and their male anchor was talking to Anne Fulwood and she has a story on what Austin was like. There are scenes of the skyline from Barton Creek Square Mall and from the east side of IH-35. There's another shot of One Congress Plaza and 100 Congress Avenue under construction, and scenes from Lake Travis (when it actually had water in it) from the original Oasis (before it burned) as well as from the lake itself.

She didn't learn Texan very well, though. Notice how she twice says how're y'all goin' instead of how're y'all doin'

The only thing I could find about Tonia Cooke being in Australia was this short 17 second clip from the Australian news station.

• Video Link

[lzppjb]

I have a request for those of you that keep posting cool old photos. Do you have any from 1884-1885 or around there? I saw the few earlier in this thread and they are great. My friend is writing a book that takes place in Austin around that time, and we're looking for photos.

Thanks

[KevinFromTexas]

Check out the Austin History Center downtown. That place is a huge source of information. They could likely help you with the copyright issues also.

There's also a few books. 'Austin and its Architecture' and 'Austin Then and Now'

[lzppjb]

Thanks, Kevin.