History of Austin,

Texas
​
Summarize
​
This article needs additional
citations for verification. Please
help improve this article by adding
citations to reliable sources.
Unsourced material may be
challenged and removed.
Find sources: "History of Austin,
Texas" – news · newspapers · books ·
scholar · JSTOR(October 2018)
(Learn how and when to remove this
message)

After declaring its independence from Mexico in March, 1836, the

Republic of Texas had various changing locations as its seat of
government. One stable location was perceived as preferable and so a
search for a permanent site for the capital began. In January, 1839, with
Mirabeau B. Lamar as its newly elected president, a site selection
committee of five commissioners was formed. Edward Burleson had
surveyed the planned townsite of Waterloo, near the mouth of Shoal
Creek on the Colorado River, in 1838; it was incorporated January 1839.
By April of that year the site selection commission had selected Waterloo
to be the new capital. A bill previously passed by Congress in May, 1838,
specified that any site selected as the new capital would be named
Austin, after the late Stephen F. Austin; hence Waterloo upon selection
as the capital was renamed Austin. The first lots in Austin went on sale
August 1839.[1][2][3][4]

Austin's history has also been largely tied to state politics and in the late
19th century, the establishment of the University of Texas made Austin a
regional center for higher education, as well as a hub for state
government. In the 20th century, Austin's music scene had earned the
city the nickname "Live Music Capital of the World."[5] With a population
of over 800,000 inhabitants in 2010, Austin is experiencing a population
boom. During the 2000s (decade) Austin was the third fastest-growing
large city in the nation.[6]

Beginning
Evidence of habitation of the Balcones Escarpment region of Texas can
be traced to at least 11,000 years ago. Two of the oldest Paleolithic
archeological sites in Texas, the Levi Rock Shelter and Smith Rock
Shelter, are located southwest and southeast of present-day Austin
respectively.[7] Several hundred years before the arrival of European
settlers, the area was inhabited by a variety of nomadic Native American
tribes. These indigenous peoples fished and hunted along the creeks,
including present-day Barton Springs,[8] which proved to be a reliable
campsite.[9] At the time of Austin's founding, the Tonkawa tribe was the
most common, with Comanches, Lipan Apaches and Waco also
frequenting the area.[10][11]

Further information: Spanish missions in Texas

The first European settlers in the present-day Austin were a group of

Spanish friars who arrived from East Texas in July 1730. They
established three temporary missions, La Purísima Concepción, San
Francisco de los Neches and San José de los Nazonis, on a site by the
Colorado River, near Barton Springs. The friars found conditions
undesirable and relocated to the San Antonio River within a year of their
arrival.[12] Following Mexico's Independence from Spain,
Anglo-Americansettlers began to populate Texas and reached
present-day Central Texas by the 1830s. The site where Austin is
located was surveyed by Edward Burleson in 1838, calling it Waterloo. It
was incorporated in January, 1839, only months before selection as the
site of the new capital, ending its existence. Early Austin resident and
chronicler Frank Brown says the first and only settler in 1838 was Jacob
Harrell who may have been living there already. Living in a tent with his
family, he later built a cabin and small stockade near the mouth of Shoal
Creek. In its short lifespan of less than two years the population of
Waterloo grew to only about twelve people made up of four
families.[13][14][15][16]

Capital City of A New Republic

By 1836 the Texas Revolution was over and the Republic of Texas was
independent. That year was also characterized by political disarray in
Texas. Between 1836 and 1837 no fewer than five Texas sites served as
temporary capitals of the new republic (Washington-on-the-Brazos,
Harrisburg, Galveston, Velasco and Columbia), before President Sam
Houston moved the capital to Houston in 1837.[17]

Shortly after the election of President Mirabeau B. Lamar, the Texas

Congress appointed a site-selection commission to locate an optimal site
for a new permanent capital. They chose a site on the western frontier,
after viewing it at the instruction of President Lamar, who visited the
sparsely settled area in 1838. Lamar was a proponent of westward
expansion. Impressed by its beauty, abundant natural resources,
promise as an economic hub, and central location in Texas territory, the
commission purchased 7,735 acres (3,130 ha) along the Colorado River
consisting of a planned townsite surveyed by Edward Burleson in 1838
(incorporated Jan, 1839) he called Waterloo, and adjacent lands.[18][19]

Because the area's remoteness from population centers and its

vulnerability to attacks by Mexican troops and Native Americans
displeased many Texans, Sam Houston among them, political opposition
made Austin's early years precarious ones. However, Lamar prevailed in
his nomination, which he felt would be a prime location that intersected
the roads to San Antonio and Santa Fe.[20]

Officially chartered in 1839, the Texas Congress designated the name of

Austin for the new city.[21] According to local folklore, Stephen F. Austin,
the "father of Texas" for whom the new capital city was named,
negotiated a boundary treaty with the local Native Americans at the site
of the present-day Treaty Oak after a few settlers were killed in raids.[22]
The city's original name is honored by local businesses such as
Waterloo Ice House and Waterloo Records, as well as Waterloo Park
downtown.[23]

Lamar tapped Judge Edwin Waller to direct the planning and

construction of the new town. Waller chose a 640-acre (260 ha) site on a
bluff above the Colorado River, nestled between Shoal Creek to the west
and Waller Creek (which was named for him) to the east. Waller and a
team of surveyors developed Austin's first city plan, commonly known as
the Waller Plan, dividing the single square-mile plot into a grid plan of 14
blocks running in both directions. One grand avenue, which Lamar
named "Congress", cut through the center of town from Capitol Square
down to the Colorado River. The streets running north and south
(paralleling Congress) were named for Texas rivers with their order of
placement matching the order of rivers on the Texas state map. The east
and west streets were named after trees native to the region, despite the
fact that Waller had recommended using numbers. (They were
eventually changed to numbers in 1884.) The city's perimeters stretched
north to south from the river at 1st Street to 15th Street, and from East
Avenue (now Interstate 35) to West Avenue.[24]Much of this original
Waller Plan design is still intact in downtown Austin today.

In October 1839, the entire government of the Republic of Texas arrived

by oxcartfrom Houston. By the next January, the population of the town
was 839. During the Republic of Texas era, France sent Alphonse
Dubois de Saligny to Austin as its chargé d'affaires. Dubois purchased
22 acres (8.9 ha) of land in 1840 on a high hill just east of downtown to
build a legation, or diplomatic outpost. The French Legation stands as
the oldest documented frame structure in Austin.[25] Also in 1839, the
Texas Congress set aside 40 acres (16 ha) of land north of the capitol
and downtown for a "university of the first class." This land became the
central campus of the University of Texas at Austin in 1883.[26]

Political turmoil and the Texas Annexation

Austin flourished initially but in 1842 entered the darkest period in its
history. Lamar's successor as President of the Republic of Texas, Sam
Houston, ordered the national archives transferred to Houston for
safekeeping after Mexican troops captured San Antonio on March 5,
1842.[27] Convinced that removal of the republic's diplomatic, financial,
land, and military-service records was tantamount to choosing a new
capital, Austinites refused to relinquish the archives. Houston moved the
government anyway, first to Houston and then to
Washington-on-the-Brazos, which remained the seat of government until
1845. The archives stayed in Austin. When Houston sent a contingent of
armed men to seize the General Land Office records in December 1842,
they were foiled by the citizens of Austin and Travis County in an
incident known as the Texas Archive War.[28] Deprived of its political
function, Austin languished. Between 1842 and 1845 its population
dropped below 200 and its buildings deteriorated.
During the summer of 1845, Anson Jones, Houston's successor as
president, called a constitutional convention meeting in Austin, approved
the annexation of Texas to the United States and named Austin the state
capital until 1850, at which time the voters of Texas were to express their
preference in a general election. After resuming its role as the seat of
government in 1845, Austin officially became the state capital on
February 19, 1846, the date of the formal transfer of authority from the
republic to the state.[29]

Austin's status as capital city of the new U.S. state of Texas remained in
doubt until 1872, when the city prevailed in a statewide election to
choose once and for all the state capital, turning back challenges from
Houston and Waco.[30]

Statehood and the U.S. Civil War

Austin recovered gradually, population reaching 854 by 1850, 225 of
whom were slaves and one a free black. Forty-eight percent of Austin's
family heads owned slaves. The city entered a period of accelerated
growth following its decisive triumph in the 1850 election to determine
the site of the state capital for the next twenty years. For the first time the
government constructed permanent buildings, among them a new capitol
at the head of Congress Avenue, completed in 1853, and the Governor's
Mansion, completed in 1856. State-run asylums for deaf, blind, and
mentally ill Texans were erected on the fringes of town. Congregations of
Baptists, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Catholics
erected permanent church buildings, and the town's elite built elegant
Greek Revivalmansions. By 1860 the population had climbed to 3,546,
including 1,019 slaves and twelve free blacks. That year thirty-five
percent of Austin's family heads owned slaves.

While Texas voted overwhelmingly to secede from the Union and join the
Confederacy in 1861, Travis County was one of a few counties in state
to vote against the secession ordinance (704 to 450). However, Unionist
sentiment waned once the war began. By April 1862 about 600 Austin
and Travis County men had joined some twelve volunteer companies
serving the Confederacy. Austinites followed with particular concern
news of the successive Union thrusts toward Texas, but the town was
never directly threatened. Like other communities, Austin experienced
severe shortages of goods, spiraling inflation, and the decimation of its
fighting men.[31]

After learning in late April 1865 of the Confederate surrender at

Appomattox, civil order in Austin began to break down. Governor
Pendleton Murrah vacated his office and fled to Mexico with other
officials. Lieutenant Governor Fletcher Stockdale then stepped up to
serve as Acting Governor. In May, Captain George R. Freeman
organized a company of 30 volunteers to protect the city. On June 11, a
group of 50 men broke into the state treasury northeast of the Capitol. A
gunfight ensued when Freeman and his volunteers arrived at the
treasury. One of the robbers was mortally wounded, and the others fled
west toward Mount Bonnell with $17,000 in gold and silver, trailing
currency along their path. None of the thieves and none of their loot was
found.[32]

The end of the Civil War brought Union occupation troops to the city and
a period of explosive growth of the African-American population, which
increased by 57 percent during the 1860s. During the late 1860s and
early 1870s the city's newly emancipated blacks established the
residential communities of Masontown, Wheatville, Pleasant Hill, and
Clarksville. By 1870, Austin's 1,615 black residents constituted some 36
percent of the town's 4,428 inhabitants.[33]

Emergence of a political and educational center

The Reconstruction boom of the 1870s brought dramatic changes to
Austin. In the downtown area, the wooden wagon yards and saloons of
the 1850s and 1860s began to be replaced by the more solid masonry
structures still standing today. On December 25, 1871, a new era
opened with the coming of the Houston and Texas Central Railway,
Austin's first railroad connection. By becoming the westernmost railroad
terminus in Texas and the only railroad town for scores of miles in most
directions, Austin was transformed into a trading center for a vast area.
Construction boomed and the population more than doubled in five years
to 10,363. The many foreign-born newcomers gave Austin's citizenry a
more heterogeneous character. By 1875 there were 757 inhabitants from
Germany, 297 from Mexico, 215 from Ireland, and 138 from Sweden. For
the first time a Mexican-American community took root in Austin, in a
neighborhood near the mouth of Shoal Creek. Accompanying these
dramatic changes were civic improvements, among them gas street
lamps in 1874, the first mule-drawn streetcar line in 1875, and the first
elevated bridge across the Colorado River about 1876. Although a
second railroad, the International and Great Northern, reached Austin in
1876, the town's fortunes turned downward after 1875 as new railroads
traversed Austin's trading region and diverted much of its trade to other
towns. From 1875 to 1880 the city's population increased by only 650
inhabitants to 11,013.[34] Austin's expectations of rivaling other Texas
cities for economic leadership faded.

However, Austin solidified its position as a political center during the

1870s, after the city prevailed in the 1872 statewide election to settle the
state capital question once and for all. Three years later Texas took the
first steps toward constructing a new Texas State Capitol that culminated
in 1888 in the dedication of a magnificent granite building towering over
the town. After a fire destroyed its predecessor in 1881, a nationwide
design contest was held to determine who would build the current
Capitol building. Architect Elijah E. Myers, who built the Capitols of
Michigan and Colorado, won with a Renaissance Revival style. However,
construction was held up for two years over a debate as to whether the
exterior should be built from granite or limestone. It was eventually
decided that it would be built of "sunset red" granite from Marble Falls.
Funded by the famous XIT Ranch, the building remains part of the
Austin skyline. The state capitol is smaller than the United States Capitol
in total gross square footage, but is actually 15 feet (4.6 m) taller than its
Washington, D.C., counterpart.[35]

Another statewide election in 1881 set the stage for Austin to become an
educational and cultural hub as well, when it was chosen as the site for a
new state university in a hotly contested election. A state constitution
adopted in 1876 mandated that Texas establish a "university of the first
class" to be located by vote of the people and styled the University of
Texas. On September 6, 1881, Austin was chosen for the site of the
main university and Galveston for the location of the medical
department. In 1882 construction began on the Austin campus with the
placement of the cornerstone of the Main Building. The university held
classes for the first time in 1883.[36] Tillotson Collegiate and Normal
Institute, the forerunner of Huston–Tillotson University, founded by the
American Missionary Association to provide educational opportunities for
African-Americans, opened its doors in East Austin by 1881. The Austin
Independent School District was established the same year.

Before either UT or Huston–Tillotson opened their doors, however, St.

Edward's Academy (the forerunner of today's St. Edward's University)
was established by the Rev. Edward Sorin in 1878 on farmland in
present-day south Austin. In 1885, the president, the Rev. P. J.
Franciscus strengthened the prestige of the academy by securing a
charter, changing its name to St. Edward's College, assembling a faculty,
and increasing enrollment. Subsequently, St. Edward's began to grow,
and the first school newspaper, the organization of baseball and football
teams, and approval to erect an administration building all followed.
Well-known architect Nicholas J. Clayton of Galveston was
commissioned to design the college's Main Building, four stories tall and
constructed with local white limestone in the Gothic Revival, that was
finished in 1888.[37]
Of note during this period were serial murders committed in 1884 and
1885 by an unidentified perpetrator known as the "Servant Girl
Annihilator". According to some sources there were eight murders,
seven women and one man, attributed to the serial killer, in addition to
eight serious injuries. These occurred in a town that had only about
23,000 citizens total. The murders made national headlines, but only
three years later London was plagued by Jack the Ripper
overshadowing Austin's tragedy in the history books.[38]

20th century
Learning to live with the Colorado River
Austin's fortunes have been tied with the Colorado River for much of its
history, no more so than in the 1890s. At the urging of local civic leader
Alexander Penn Wooldridge, the citizens of Austin voted overwhelmingly
to put themselves deeply in debt to build a dam along the river to attract
manufacturing. The hope was that cheap hydroelectricity would lure
industrialists who would line the riverbanks with cotton mills. Austin
would become "the Lowell of the South," and the sleepy center of
government and education would be transformed into a bustling
industrial city. The town had reached its limits as a seat of politics and
education, Wooldridge contended, yet its economy could not sustain its
present size. Empowered by a new city charter in 1891 that more than
tripled Austin's corporate area from 41⁄2 to 161⁄2 square miles, the city
fathers implemented a plan to build a municipal water and electric
system, construct a dam for power, and lease most of the hydroelectric
power to manufacturers. By 1893 the sixty-foot-high Austin Dam was
completed just northwest of town. In 1895 dam-generated electricity
began powering the four-year-old electric streetcar line and the city's
new water and light systems. The dammed river formed a lake that
became known as "Lake McDonald," for John McDonald, the mayor who
had whipped up support for the project—attracted new residents and
developers, while the waters of the lake itself drew those seeking respite
from the Texas heat. Austin boomed in the mid-1890s, driven largely by
land speculation. Monroe M. Shipe established Hyde Park, a classic
streetcar suburb north of downtown, and smaller developments sprang
up around the city. Thirty-one new 165-foot-high moonlight towers
illuminated Austin at night. Civic pride ran strong during those years,
which also saw the city blessed with the talents of sculptor Elisabet
Neyand writer O. Henry.

By today's standards, the dam was unremarkable – a wall of granite and

limestone, 65 feet high and 1,100 feet long, with no catwalk or
floodgates. But Scientific American magazine was sufficiently impressed
to feature the dam on its cover. However, structurally the dam was likely
doomed from the start, as it was constructed on the spot where the
Balcones Fault passes under the river. Silt had filled nearly half the lake
by February 1900, and the dam's design failed to accommodate the
force that could be created by a large volume of water. However, the flow
of the Colorado proved to be far more variable than the project's
promoters had claimed, and the dam was never able to produce the kind
of steady power needed to drive a bank of mills. The manufacturers
never came, periodic power shortfalls disrupted city services, Lake
McDonald silted up, and, on April 7, 1900, the Austin Dam was dealt its
final blow after a spring storm. At 11:20 am, floodwaters crested at 11
feet atop the dam before it disintegrated, with two 250-foot sections –
almost half the dam – breaking away. In all, the flood drowned 18 people
and destroyed 100 houses in Austin, at a total estimated loss of $1.4
million, in 1900 dollars.[39]

After 1900, the people of Austin did what they could to recover from the
disaster. Having gotten a taste of city-owned electric power, they refused
to go back; they bought out the local private power company, which used
steam-driven generators, and today's Austin Energy municipal utility is in
a sense a legacy of the old Austin Dam. The city also tried to rebuild the
dam itself, but a dispute with the contractor left the repairs unfinished in
1912, and another flood in 1915 damaged it further. The wrecked dam
sat derelict, "a tombstone on the river," until the Lower Colorado River
Authority stepped in and, with federal money, rebuilt it as Tom Miller
Dam, completed in 1940. The remaining portions of the 1893 and 1912
dams were incorporated into the new structure, but are now hidden
under new layers of concrete.[40] By the time it was finished, however,
Tom Miller Dam was already overshadowed by the much larger LCRA
dams built upstream that formed the Texas Highland Lakes. For the last
seventy years, Lake Travis (Mansfield Dam) and Lake Buchanan
(Buchanan Dam), have provided water, hydroelectric power, and flood
control for Central Texas.

Between 1880 and 1920 Austin's population grew threefold to 34,876,

but the city slipped from fourth largest in the state to tenth largest. The
state's surging industrial development, along with Columbus Marion
"Dad" Joiner striking oil 257 miles (410 km) east of Austin in Kilgore,
spawning at the worlds largest oil field, the East Texas oil boom,[42]
helped propel Texas’s booming oil business, passed Austin by. The
capital city began boosting itself as a residential city, but the heavy
municipal indebtedness incurred in building the dam resulted in the
neglect of city services. On December 20, 1886, the Driskill Hotel
opened at 6th and Brazos, giving Austin its first premier hotel. The hotel
would close and reopen many times in subsequent years. In 1905 Austin
had few sanitary sewers, virtually no public parks or playgrounds, and
only one paved street. Three years later Austin voters overturned the
alderman form of government, by which the city had been governed
since 1839, and replaced it with commission government. Wooldridge
headed the reform group voted into office in 1909 and served a decade
as mayor, during which the city made steady if modest progress toward
improving residential life. The Littefield and Scarborough buildings at 6th
and Congress downtown also opened that year, representing the city's
first skyscrapers.[43] In 1910, the city opened the concrete Congress
Avenue Bridge across the Colorado River and, by the next year, had
extended the streetcar line to South Austin along South Congress
Avenue. The fostered development south of the river for the first time,
allowing for development of Travis Heights in 1913.

In 1918 the city acquired Barton Springs, a spring-fed pool that became
the symbol of the residential city. Upon Wooldridge's retirement in 1919
the flaws of commission government, hidden by his leadership, became
apparent as city services again deteriorated. At the urging of the
Chamber of Commerce, Austinites voted in 1924 to adopt
council-manager government, which went into effect in 1926 and
remains in effect today. Progressive ideas like city planning and
beautification became official city policy. A 1928 city plan, the first since
1839, called upon Austin to develop its strengths as a residential,
cultural, and educational center. A $4,250,000 bond issue, Austin's
largest to date, provided funds for streets, sewers, parks, the city
hospital, the first permanent public library building, and the first municipal
airport, which opened in 1930. A recreation department was established,
and within a decade it offered Austinites a profusion of recreational
programs, parks, and pools.[44]

Race and the 1928 City Plan

By the early years of the 20th century, African-Americans occupied
settlements in various parts of the city of Austin. By and large, these
residential communities had churches at their core. Some had black-run
businesses and schools for African-American youth. Though surrounded
by Anglo neighborhoods, these island enclaves functioned as fairly
autonomous residential neighborhoods often organized around family
ties, common religious practices, and connection to pre-emancipation
slave-status relationships with common slave holders/land owners.
Though some date back to slavery, by the 1920s these communities
were located across the city and include Kincheonville (1865), Wheatville
(1867), Clarksville(1871), Masonville, St. Johns, Pleasant Hill, and other
settlements.[45]

While residences of blacks had been widely scattered all across the city
in 1880, by 1930 they were heavily concentrated in East Austin, a
process encouraged by the 1928 Austin city plan, which recommended
that East Austin be designated a "Negro district." City officials
implemented the plan successfully, and most blacks who had been living
in the western half of the city were "relocated" back to the former
plantation lands, on the other side of East Avenue (now Interstate 35).
Municipal services like schools, sewers, and parks were made available
to blacks in East Austin only. At mid-century Austin was still segregated
in most respects—housing, restaurants, hotels, parks, hospitals,
schools, public transportation—but African Americans had long fostered
their own institutions, which included by the late 1940s some 150 small
businesses, more than thirty churches, and two colleges, Tillotson
College and Samuel Huston College. Between 1880 and 1940 the
number of black residents grew from 3,587 to 14,861, but their
proportion of the overall population declined from 33% to 17%.[46]

Austin's Hispanic residents, who in 1900 numbered about 335 and

composed just 1.5% of the population, rose to 11% by 1940, when they
numbered 9,693. By the 1940s most Mexican-Americans lived in the
rapidly expanding East Austin barrio south of East Eleventh Street,
where increasing numbers owned homes. Hispanic-owned business
were dominated by a thriving food industry. Though Mexican Americans
encountered widespread discrimination—in employment, housing,
education, city services, and other areas—it was by no means practiced
as rigidly as it was toward African-Americans.

Between the 1950s and 1980s ethnic relations in Austin were

transformed. First came a sustained attack on segregation. Local black
leaders and political-action groups waged campaigns to desegregate city
schools and services. In 1956 the University of Texas became the first
major university in the South to admit blacks as undergraduates. In the
early 1960s students staged demonstrations against segregated lunch
counters, restaurants, and movie theaters. Gradually the barriers
receded, a process accelerated when the United States Civil Rights Act
of 1964 outlawed racial discrimination in public accommodations.
Nevertheless, discrimination persisted in areas like employment and
housing. Shut out of the town's political leadership since the 1880s,
when two blacks had served on the city council, African-Americans
regained a foothold by winning a school-board seat in 1968 and a
city-council seat in 1971. This political breakthrough was matched by
Hispanics, whose numbers had reached 39,399 by 1970, or 16 percent
of the population. Mexican-Americans won their first seats on the Austin
school board in 1972 and the city council in 1975.

Growth during the Great Depression

During the early and mid-1930s, Austin experienced the harsh effects of
the Great Depression. Nevertheless, the town fared comparatively well,
sustained by its twin foundations of government and education and by
the political skills of Mayor Tom Miller, who took office in 1933, and
United States Congressman Lyndon Baines Johnson, who won election
to the U.S. House of Representativesin 1937. Its population grew at a
faster pace during the 1930s than in any other decade during the 20th
century, increasing 66 percent from 53,120 to 87,930. By 1936 the Public
Works Administration had provided Austin with more funding for
municipal construction projects than any other Texas city during the
same period. UT nearly doubled its enrollment during the decade and
undertook a massive construction program. In addition, the Robert
Mueller Municipal Airport opened its doors for commercial air traffic in
1930.

Over three decades after the original Austin Dam collapsed, Governor
Miriam A. "Ma" Ferguson signed the bill that created the Lower Colorado
River Authority(LCRA). Modeled after the Tennessee Valley Authority,
the LCRA is a nonprofit public utility involved in managing the resources
along the Highland Lakes and Colorado River. The old Austin Dam,
partially rebuilt under Mayor Wooldridge but never finished due to
damage from flooding in 1915, was finally completed in 1940 and
renamed Tom Miller Dam. Lake Austin stretched twenty-one miles
behind it. Just upriver the much larger Mansfield Dam was completed in
1941 to impound Lake Travis. The two dams, in conjunction with other
dams in the Lower Colorado River Authority system, brought great
benefits to Austin: cheap hydroelectric power, the end of flooding that in
1935 and on earlier occasions had ravaged the town, and a plentiful
supply of water without which the city's later growth would have been
unlikely.[47] In 1942 Austin gained the economic benefit of Del Valle Army
Air Base, later Bergstrom Air Force Base, which remained in operation
until 1993.

Post-War growth and its consequences

From 1940 to 1990 Austin's population grew at an average rate of 40
percent per decade, from 87,930 to 472,020. By 2000 the population
was 656,562. The city's corporate area, which between 1891 and 1940
had about doubled to 30.85 square miles, grew more than sevenfold to
225.40 square miles by 1990. During the 1950s and 1960s much of
Austin's growth reflected the rapid expansion of its traditional
strengths—education and government. During the 1960s alone the
number of students attending the University of Texas at Austin doubled,
reaching 39,000 by 1970. Government employees in Travis County
tripled between 1950 and 1970 to 47,300. University of Texas buildings
multiplied, with the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library opening in 1971. A
complex of state office buildings was constructed north of the Capitol.
Propelling Austin's growth by the 1970s was its emergence as a center
for high technology. This development, fostered by the Chamber of
Commerce since the 1950s as a way to expand the city's narrow
economic base and fueled by proliferating research programs at the
University of Texas, accelerated when IBM located in Austin in 1967,
followed by Texas Instruments in 1969 and Motorola in 1974. Two major
research consortia of high-technology companies followed during the
1980s, Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation and
Sematech. By the early 1990s, the Austin–Round Rock–San Marcos
Metropolitan Statistical Area had about 400 high-technology
manufacturers. While high-technology industries located on Austin's
periphery, its central area sprouted multi-storied office buildings and
hotels during the 1970s and 1980s, venues for the burgeoning music
industry, and, in 1992, a new convention center.

On August 1, 1966, UT student and former Marine Charles Whitman

killed both his wife and his mother before ascending the UT Tower and
opening fire with a high-powered sniper rifle and several other firearms.
Whitman killed or fatally wounded 14 more people over the next 90
minutes before being shot dead by police.

1970 to 1989
During the 1970s and 1980s, the city experienced a tremendous boom in
development that temporarily halted with the Savings and Loan crisis in
the late 1980s. The growth led to an ongoing series of fierce political
battles that pitted preservationists against developers. In particular the
preservation of Barton Springs, and by extension the Edwards Aquifer,
became an issue that defined the themes of the larger battles.

Austin's rapid growth generated strong resistance by the 1970s. Angered

by proliferating apartment complexes and traffic flow, neighborhood
groups mobilized to protect the integrity of their residential areas. By
1983 there were more than 150 such groups. Environmentalists
organized a powerful movement to protect streams, lakes, watersheds,
and wooded hills from environmental degradation, resulting in the
passage of a series of environmental-protection ordinances during the
1970s and 1980s. A program was inaugurated in 1971 to beautify the
shores of Town Lake (now named Lady Bird Lake), a downtown lake
impounded in 1960 behind Longhorn Crossing Dam. Historic
preservationists fought the destruction of Austin's architectural heritage
by rescuing and restoring historic buildings. City election campaigns
during the 1970s and 1980s frequently featured struggles over the
management of growth, with neighborhood groups and
environmentalists on one side and business and development interests
on the other. As Austin became known as a location for creative
individuals, corporate retail branches also moved into town and
displaced many "home-grown" businesses. To many longtime Austinites,
this loss of landmark retail establishments left a void in the city's culture.
In the 1970s, Austin became a refuge for a group of country and western
musicians and songwriters seeking to escape the music industry's
corporate domination of Nashville. The best-known artist in this group
was Willie Nelson, who became an icon for what became the city's
"alternate music industry"; another was Stevie Ray Vaughan. In 1975,
Austin City Limits premiered on PBS, showcasing Austin's burgeoning
music scene to the country.

The Armadillo World Headquarters gained a national reputation during

the 1970s as a venue for these anti-establishment musicians as well as
mainstream acts. In the following years, Austin gained a reputation as a
place where struggling musicians could launch their careers in informal
live venues in front of receptive audiences. This ultimately led to the
city's official motto, "The Live Music Capital of the World".

1990 to present
This section needs to be updated.
Please help update this article to
reflect recent events or newly
available information. (March 2018)
In the 1990s, the boom resumed with the influx and growth of a large
technology industry. Initially, the technology industry was centered
around larger, established companies such as IBM, but in the late 1990s,
Austin gained the additional reputation of being a center of the dot-com
boom and subsequent dot-com bust. Austin is also known for game
development, filmmaking, and popular music. On May 23, 1999,
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport served its first passengers,
replacing Robert Mueller Municipal Airport.[48] In 2000, Austin became
the center of an intense media focus as the headquarters of presidential
candidate and Texas Governor George W. Bush. The headquarters of
his main opponent, Al Gore, were in Nashville, thus re-creating the old
country music rivalry between the two cities.

Also in the 2000 election, Austinites narrowly rejected a light rail

proposal put forward by Capital Metro. In 2004, however, they approved
a commuter railservice from Leander to downtown along existing rail
lines. Capital MetroRailservice finally began service in 2010.[49]

In 2004, the Frost Bank Tower opened in the downtown business district
along Congress Avenue. At 515 feet (157 m), it was the tallest building in
Austin by a wide margin, and was also the first high rise to be built after
September 11, 2001. Several other high-rise downtown projects, most
residential or mixed-use, were underway in the downtown area at the
time, dramatically changing the appearance of downtown Austin, and
placing a new emphasis on downtown living and development.[50]

In 2006, the first sections of Austin's first toll road network opened.[51]
The toll roads were extolled as a solution to underfunded highway
projects, but also decried by opposition groups who felt the tolls
amounted in some cases to a double tax. Now in 2025 there are 10 toll
roads 1 thru 4 are the most expensive tolls in Austin SH 130 toad roll
section 1-4 are which is counted among one of the most expensive toll
roads in the USA.[52]
In March 2018, a series of four explosions centered in Austin, killed two
civilians and injuring another five.[53]

In 2019, the city adopted the Austin Strategic Mobility Plan (ASMP) as its
long-term transportation strategy. The plan focuses on improving
mobility, reducing traffic congestion and decreasing the city's reliance on
automobiles. Key initiatives include expanding pedestrian and bicycle
infrastructure, enhancing public transit services and promoting road
safety with the goal of eliminating traffic fatalities. The ASMP also aims
to support environmental sustainability and address the transportation
challenges associated with Austin's growing population.[54]

Presently, In 2025 Austin has a population of 989,252. Austin is currently

growing at a rate of 0.48% annually and its population has increased by
2.43% since the most recent census, which recorded a population of
965,827 in 2022.[55] Austin continues to rise in popularity and experience
rapid growth. Young people in particular have flooded the city, drawn in
part by its relatively strong economy, its reputation of liberal politics[56]
and alternative culture in Middle America, and its relatively low housing
costs compared to the coastal regions of the country. Austin has also
become a hub for a growing music scene, and has even adopted a
motto of being the "Live Music Capital of the World[57]." The sudden
growth has brought up several issues for the city, including urban sprawl,
as well as balancing the need for new infrastructure with environmental
protection. Most recently, the city has pushed for smart growth, mostly in
downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods, spurring the
development of new condominiums in the area and altering the city's
skyline. While Smart Growth has been successful in revitalizing
downtown and the surrounding central city neighborhoods housing
development has not kept pace with demand driven by rapid and
sustained employment growth which has resulted in higher housing
costs.
Austin continues to maintain its liberal political landscape with its mayor
Kirk Watson. He won his first term in a 1997 election and was reelected
to office in 2022 with 50.4% of the vote. As of 2025, Watson is serving
his third term as mayor after serving in the Texas Senate. He is a
member of the Democratic Partyand his main areas of focus pertain to
cost of living, homelessness, and transportation through the city.[58]

See also
●​ Timeline of Austin, Texas
●​ Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority for a history of public
transportation in Austin

References
1.​ Barkley, Mary Starr. History of Travis County and Austin
2.​ Kerr, Jeff. Seat of Empire: The Embattled Birth of Austin, Texas.
3.​ Terrell, Alex W. The City of Austin from 1839 to 1865, The
Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 14, July
1910 - April, 1911, pp. 113-128.
4.​ Humphrey, David C. "Austin, Texas (Travis County)". Handbook of
Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved
September 6, 2011.
5.​ "Live Music Capital of the World: Music thriving in Austin".
weareaustin.com. January 23, 2009.
6.​ Christie, Les (June 28, 2007). "The fastest growing U.S. cities".
CNNMoney.com. Cable News Network. Retrieved July 24, 2008.
7.​ Hester, Thomas (1986). "The Balcones Escarpment: Early Human
Populations". Geological Society of America. 6 (2). Abbott, Patrick
L. and Woodruff, C. M.: 55–62. Archived from the original on
October 12, 2011. Retrieved September 6, 2011.
8.​ "Brief History of Austin from Austin History Center". Archived from
the original on August 8, 2007. Retrieved September 28, 2006.
9.​ History of Barton Springs from Austin History Center
10.​ Native Americans in Austin from Austin History Center Archived
October 5, 2001, at the Wayback Machine
11.​ Newcomb, W.W. Jr. The Indians of Texas: From Prehistoric to
Modern Times. University of Texas Press, 1961.
12.​ "The Spanish Missions in Texas". Texas Almanac. Texas State
Historical Association. Retrieved September 10, 2011.
13.​ Brown, Frank. Annals of Travis County and of the City of Austin:
From the Earliest Times to the Close of 1875. Frank Brown
(1833–1913) came to Texas as a boy and lived in Austin working
for Travis County for much of his adult life. Brown’s Annals are one
of the best contemporary sources of early Austin history. Written in
1900, they were never published formally but typed paper
transcripts are on file at the Austin History Center, Texas State
Library, and University of Texas' Briscoe Center for American
History. Brown’s Annals are available online at The Portal to Texas
History via partnership with the Travis County Historical
Commission and Travis County Archives. References here are
Portal’s volumes and page numbers: 2:109, 9:36, 3:67.
14.​ Terrell, Alex W. The City of Austin from 1839 to 1865, The
Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 14,
July 1910 - April, 1911, pp. 113-128.
15.​ Starr Barkley, Mary (1963). History of Travis County and Austin,
1839–1899. Texian Press.
16.​ Kerr, Jeff. Seat of Empire: The Embattled Birth of Austin, Texas.
pp. 8, 65-66. Texas Tech University Press, 2013.
17.​ Johnson, John G. "Capitals". Handbook of Texas. Retrieved
September 10,2011.
18.​ Terrell, Alex W. The City of Austin from 1839 to 1865, The
Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 14, July
1910 - April, 1911, pp. 113-128.
19.​ Hazlewood, Claudia. "Waterloo, Texas (Travis County)".
Handbook of Texas. Retrieved September 6, 2011.
20.​ Wharton, Clarence (1922). The republic of Texas: a brief history
of Texas from the first American colonies in 1821 to annexation in
1846. C. C. Young printing company. pp. 172.
21.​ Biruta, Celmins Kearl. "Brief History". Austin History Center.
Retrieved July 23, 2019.
22.​ "Treaty Oak History from Austin Parks and Recreation".
Retrieved August 6,2006.
23.​ "When was Austin founded? from Austin History Center".
Archived from the original on June 27, 2006. Retrieved September
28, 2006.
24.​ Charles D., Spurlin. "Waller, Edwin". Handbook of Texas.
Retrieved September 6, 2011.
25.​ "History of the French Legation". French Legation Museum
Society. Retrieved November 21, 2011.
26.​ Battle, William James. "University of Texas at Austin". Handbook
of TexasOnline. Retrieved September 6, 2011.
27.​ Handbook of Texas, Mexican Invasions of 1842
28.​ Texas State Library and Archives Commission. "Texas Archives
War". Texas State Library, Texas Treasures. Retrieved September
6, 2011.
29.​ Winfrey, Dorman H. (October 1960), "The Texan Archive War of
1842", Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 64 (2), Texas Historical
Association: 171–184, retrieved January 10, 2009
30.​ Winders, Ricard Bruce (2002). Crisis in the Southwest: The
United States, Mexico, and the Struggle over Texas. Lanham,
Rowman & Littlefield. p. 41.
31.​ Greene, A.C. (1969). "The Durable Society: Austin in the
Reconstruction". The Southwestern Historical Quarterly. 72 (4).
Texas State Historical Association: 492–518. JSTOR 30236542.
32.​ Cox, Patrick (July 1, 1995). "Treasury Robbery". Handbook of
Texas. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved June 16,
2022.
33.​ Cannon, Deborah (February 22, 2006). "Reflections of Black
Austin". Austin American-Statesman.
34.​ Cox, Mike (September 16, 2011). "Austin as Texas' Capital".
Texas Escapes. Retrieved November 23, 2011.
35.​ Cotner, Robert C. (1968). The Texas State Capitol. Austin:
Pemberton Press. pp. 15–17. ISBN 0-292-73703-3.
36.​ Battle, William Janes. "University of Texas at Austin". Retrieved
November 23, 2011.
37.​ "St. Edward's University Celebrates Centennial of Main
Building". St. Edward's University. October 8, 2003. Archived from
the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved November 23, 2011.
38.​ Hollandsworth, Skip (July 2000). "Capital Murder". Texas
Monthly.
39.​ Hunt, Bruce J. (July 13, 2011). "The Rise and Fall of the Austin
Dam". Not Even Past. Retrieved November 23, 2011.
40.​ Spencer, Jim (April 7, 2010). "First Austin Dam Collapse 110
Years Ago Today". KXAN Blogs. Archived from the original on
November 7, 2011. Retrieved November 23, 2011.
41.​ "McKinley at Austin, Tex". Street Railway Review. Vol. XII, no. 2.
Chicago: Windsor & Kenfield Publishing Co. February 15, 1902. p.
89. Retrieved September 15, 2021.
42.​ Dallas Historical Society - Dallas History Archived 2006-04-22 at
the Wayback Machine. Retrieved on 21 April 2006
43.​ Wermund, Ben (October 5, 2011). "Littlefield, Scarbrough
buildings mark a century in Austin". Austin American-Statesman.
Archived from the original on October 13, 2010. Retrieved
November 23, 2011.
44.​ "History of Austin's Forms of Government". Office of the City
Clerk, City of Austin. 1995. Retrieved November 23, 2011.
45.​ "How East Austin Became a Negro District". East End Cultural
Heritage District & Diverse Arts. 2010. Archived from the original
on April 26, 2012. Retrieved November 23, 2011.
46.​ Phillips, Alberta (November 22, 2009). "Proof of Austin's past is
right there – in black and white". Austin American-Statesman.
Archived from the originalon September 10, 2012. Retrieved
November 23, 2011.
47.​ "LCRA and Central Texas since 1900". Lower Colorado River
Authority. Archived from the original on February 20, 2012.
Retrieved November 23,2011.
48.​ Austin airport has 2nd record year[permanent dead link], Austin
American-Statesman, January 25, 2007.
49.​ Capital Metro: Capital MetroRail Archived May 24, 2011, at the
Wayback Machine
50.​ "Cousins Properties Opens Frost Bank Tower in Austin".
AllBusiness.com. Retrieved April 29, 2010.
51.​ "Austin toll roads will open November 1" (PDF).
centraltexasturnpike.org. September 18, 2006. Archived (PDF)
from the original on June 20, 2007. Retrieved November 22, 2021.
52.​ "austin-toll-road-toll-map". Toll Wiki. May 22, 2024. Retrieved
April 16,2025.
53.​ Moravec, Eva Ruth; Flynn, Meagan (March 19, 2018). "Fourth
Austin package explosion this month possibly detonated by trip
wire, leaving 2 injured, police say". Washington Post. ISSN
0190-8286. Retrieved March 19, 2018.
54.​ "Austin Strategic Mobility Plan" (PDF). Austin Texas. July 7,
2022.
55.​ "Austin, Texas Population 2025". worldpopulationreview.com.
Retrieved April 16, 2025.
56.​ "Austin pubs could go smoke-free". San Antonio Express-News.
May 3, 2008. Retrieved July 8, 2009.[permanent dead link]
 57.​ ^ "How Austin became the 'Live Music Capital of the World'".
KXAN Austin. April 24, 2023. Archived from the original on October
8, 2024. Retrieved April 29, 2025.
58.​ ^ "About | AustinTexas.gov". www.austintexas.gov. Retrieved
April 30, 2025.

Further reading
[edit]
See also: Timeline of Austin, Texas § Bibliography

●​ Auyero, Javier. Invisible in Austin: Life and Labor in an American

City (U of Texas Press, 2015).
●​ Busch, Andrew. "Building" A City of Upper-Middle-Class Citizens":
Labor Markets, Segregation, and Growth in Austin, Texas,
1950–1973." Journal of Urban History (2013) online
●​ Humphrey, David C. Austin: A history of the capital city (Texas
A&M University Press, 2013).