Austin History

Bringing the General Home: A Controversial Corpse's Long Return to Austin

By Jeffrey S. Kerr / May 22, 2013

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Albert Sidney Johnston wanted to come home.

From Circus Ring to Parking Lot: The Long History of Republic Square

By Jeffrey S. Kerr / April 17, 2013

Where in Austin can you go to see a physical reminder of the city’s birth? Does anything remain in our modern metropolis that greeted Texas President Mirabeau Lamar upon his triumphant 1839 entry into the city he helped create?

Tragedy in Guy Town

By Jeffrey S. Kerr / March 28, 2013

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Irish stone mason James Simms observed the changes in his Austin neighborhood with trepidation. The quiet residential community around his house at the corner of Cypress (Third) and Guadalupe streets had been invaded by sin. Saloons and gambling houses proliferated and thrived. Worse though, by 1874 at least two dozen “lewd women,” or prostitutes, lived within two blocks of the Simms home.

When the Weird was Wild - Austin's Frontier History (Part 2)

By Jeffrey S. Kerr / March 15, 2013

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All right, SXSW fan, ready to continue your walking tour of frontier Austin? Recall that the first leg of the tour left us at the intersection of Congress Avenue and Eighth (Hickory) Street, where in 1838 Mirabeau Lamar shot one ginormous buffalo. Did you know that a couple of years ago our current governor continued this tradition of Texas politicians gunning down wildlife by shooting a coyote during a morning run?

When the Weird was Wild - Austin's Frontier History (Part 1)

By Jeffrey S. Kerr / March 14, 2013

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So you’re in town for SXSW and you somehow woke up before noon and it’s a beautiful day outside and your first must-see band doesn’t play until suppertime. What do you do? You’ve seen Mount Bonnell, Barton Springs is too cold despite what that Speedo-wearing guy in the lobby said and your credit card has to pace itself so the Domain and SoCo are out.

Ben Thompson's March Toward Death

By Jeffrey S. Kerr / February 13, 2013

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At age nine he arrived with his family in New Orleans aboard the Grenada after a cross-Atlantic voyage from Liverpool, England. Five months later he and his clan settled in Austin. In 1856 the by-now thirteen-year-old youth answered a dare from his friend Joe Brown by shooting him in the backside with a small shotgun.

1940s Austin Meets Who's Who in Black America

By Jeffrey S. Kerr / February 7, 2013

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Imagine a university-sponsored artist series boasting an International Peace Prize winner, a world-famous tenor, one of the 20th century's most influential poets and the first African-American to represent New York in the U.S. Congress. Where in 1944 Austin would you have gone to avail yourself of such talent?

Hope and His Dreams: The Tilley Brothers Bring Motion Pictures to Austin

By Jeffrey S. Kerr / January 11, 2013

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Quick, Austin movie buffs, what was the first movie filmed in Austin that received national distribution? Richard Linklater’s 1991 coming-of-age film "Slacker?" Nope, too recent. Tobe Hooper’s 1974 gorefest "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre?" You’re getting closer, but you’re still off by decades

Now's the Time to Go to Cisco's

By Rob Patterson / January 3, 2013

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Have you ever been to Cisco's? I texted my friend Amy as we figured out our brunch plans a few Saturdays back.

No, she replied. Let's go there.

Merry Christmas, Mr. Douglass: A Photographic History of Holidays Past

By Jeffrey S. Kerr / December 20, 2012

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Snyder native Neal Douglass (1900-1983) had already spent time with several newspapers when he hired on with the Austin American-Statesman in 1934. A year later he found himself attending a six-week crash course in photography at the University of Texas. After all, if he was to succeed as the first chief of the American-Statesman’s new photography department, he would have to know his way around a camera.

Bring Me a Bicycle Rifle, Santa! Xmas 1897-Style

By Jeffrey S. Kerr / December 14, 2012

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Well, you’ve just returned from a rough day on the job at Butler’s Brickyard or Wenzel’s Cigar Factory, kicked off your boots and settled into your favorite chair. You light your cigar (because lung cancer hasn’t been invented yet) and open the December 16, 1897 edition of the Austin Weekly

The Yankees are Coming!

By Jeffrey S. Kerr / December 5, 2012

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Major Getulius “Julius” Kellersberger licked his lips at the prospect of the sumptuous meal that awaited him at Austin’s Metropolitan Hotel. Tasked by General John Magruder, Confederate commander of the western district including Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, with fortifying the city of Austin

Base Ball Comes to Town; Austin Holds Own Against NY's Best in Fall Brawl

By Jeffrey S. Kerr / November 28, 2012

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One beautiful autumn day in 1887 found a procession of carriages rolling along Austin’s major streets. Onlookers cheered and waved to the uniformed men in the vehicles. Some of the men had endured dozens of such rides. Visitors from up north, these men politely acknowledged the cheers and exc

Mayor Ford Ousts Mexicans to Keep Slaves Close at Hand

By Jeffrey S. Kerr / November 1, 2012

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John “Rip” Ford didn’t want to throw every Mexican out of Austin, just the “unworthy” ones.

Who Are the Ghosts of Austin? Ask Chris English

By Jackie Stone / October 30, 2012

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Every town has its ghost stories. In Austin, probably the most famous are of the hauntings at the historic Driskill Hotel, from the senator’s daughter who some say still plays in the halls and on the stairwell where she died to Colonel Driskill himself, who reportedly leaves the smell of cigar s

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