Little known Austin area trivia....

I learned two things in the past week.

1) The old music store that was at 49th and Burnet (it now an Austin assisted living place or something) was a hardware store back in the 60's. It's the place where Whitman bought his rifle the morning he went to the tower. It was called "Davis Hardware."

2) 7 Members of the 1927 Baylor basketball team and 3 other supporters riding with them were killed when their bus collided with a train just south of downtown Round Rock (south Mays and Bagdad) The overpass was built not long after this because of this tragedy.



Here's a link to the story. Evidently, it's remembered every year at Homecoming at Baylor. I had never even heard this story until today.The Link

Anyone else got any little known trivia from around Austin?

 

I don't know how little known or commonly known it is but the Clash filmed their video, Rock The Casbah, in Austin. The jets fly over City Colliseum. Being a fan of the Clash this sits well with me.

 

The UT Tower was NOT designed by a Rice graduate.

Funny story. I was walking through downtown and this lady stops her friends. She points up to the Frost Bank building and says: "That building was designed by a Rice graduate... so if you squint you can see that the top of the Frost Bank looks like an Owl." Her friends were like "Yeah... I see it. Crazy"

Ha ha ha. The Frost Bank is the new owl. WTF.

 

I thought that the Frost tower was designed by The Sharper Image......based on their nose hair trimmers.

 

So there are or are not giant catfish at the base of Mansfield dam?

 

I thought the Frost Tower was in tribute to Nakitomi Plaza, Mister Falcon.

 

November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was set to speak at a dinner in Austin (I forget where). A reception was to be held on the roof of the old Commodore Hotel on Brazos and 9th (now the Mexican Consulate). They are renovating that building now, but the rooftop suite is still there.

 

These might fall into the category of Austin Urban Legend as opposed to Austin trivia but I've always heard that some mafia guy was dismembered inside the taxidermy shop at the corner of S Lamar & Oltorf. Also, supposedly El Patio is/was mob owned.

There's a little house looking place on South First kinda near where that motorcyle cop statue is with a sign out front that says "Austin Mortuary Service" or something like that. Supposedly everybody who dies in Austin goes there for burial preparation.

These are true:
Armadillo World Headquarters was NOT at the site of the current Hyatt on Town Lake. It was further down S. 1st kinda behind Threadgill's, where the big office building is. Eddie Wilson owned both places (Threadgills & AWH). For some reason everybody wants to blame the Hyatt for tearing down AWH.

There is an empty coffee cup sitting on one of the upper interior ledges of the Capital Rotunda. It was left there by a worker during renovations a few years ago, and there's no way to get to it without rebuilding the scaffolding, so they left it. You can only see it from that tiny circular staircase way, way up at the top of the rotunda.

 

I've snorkled at the very base of Mansfield. No giant cats, but during the spring, there's a whole bunch of crawdads. Big suckers, they be.

 

The dinner for JFK was to be held at Palmer Auditorium.

 

Traffic didn't suck, until you moved here.

 

Here's a few more:

The new city park on Town Lake is the former site of a minor league ballpark. The Austin Senators played there until about 1967. Until construction started on the park, you could still see light poles in an arc where the outfield fences used to be.

A street in Hyde Park behind the big Baptist church is a former race track. I believe the street is 39th. Look for the curving, unusually high curb.

Indians attacked and killed a white family homesteading on Shoal Creek in the vicinity of 35th St. There is a historical marker there now.

 

that street, I think, is 39th, just east of Ave F.

 

I live right by Hyde Park baptist, I'll have to check that out...

 

This is lame, but it's all I could think of:

The north-south streets in downtown are all named after rivers (except Congress) and they are laid out in proper geographic order, starting with Sabine in the east and Rio Grande in the west.

 

oh yeah...

The crack in the floor of the Capitol rotunda was not caused by a plummeting worker.

A worker fell and died in 1922, but the terrazzo floor was installed 14 years later.

 

re: Threadgills location. I don't know if it was ever a Luby's but it was most definitely a Marimont at one time.

re: street names - the east/west ones were originially named after trees. I used to know when and why they changed to numbers but I forgot.

 

b/c Kansas has no trees

 

Good stuff, SonofSon.
You may be right regarding Davis hardware being downtown. This police report after the Whitman shootings mentions, "Davis Hardware No.2" so the original location might very well have been downtown, and based on your memory, I'm betting you're correct.

 

Whitman bought his 12 ga. pump shotgun (not his rifle) at the Davis hardware on Burnet Road.

There was an old prewar airstrip near Koenig & Airport - the original corregated metal hangar is still standing...about 1 block south of Koenig.

Highland Mall sits on the former grounds of an old African-American (Negro, in those days) orphanage. During site preparation in the late 1960's, several graves of deceased children were unearthed.

The Treehouse Restaurant at Oltorf & S.Congress originally was the PIg Stand - a classic early '50s-'60s drive-in hangout for us south Austin teens. There is still a Pig Stand in San Antonio.

The site of Murchison Middle School was an abandoned rock quarry, and the surounding area (now Northwest Hills) was considered worthless $50/acre goat country.

 

I'm pretty sure i've read that Whitman bought the shotgun at the Sears over by i-35 and 41st area (Hancock center maybe?)
See my above post. For some reason the image didn't work last night but it is now..

 

Whoops!

Dallas, I didn't see your pic of the police report.

I stand corrected, but maybe you are right about Sears being the place where he bought the shotgun. I also remember he bought a hacksaw to cut the barrel off short.

 

I got my first baseball mit from Davis Hardware downtown. Blue Rawlings Roberto Clemente Model.

Cook funeral home handled Whitman and his mother. (I cant remember which was cremated in San Antonio)

Let see I thought of a few more,

Barton Springs Pool allows topless sunbathers and was quite a few ladies who did back in the late 70's early 80's.
Riverside Bait and Tackle was in the Enterprise Rental Car building on Barton Springs and S Lamar. Also Austin Bowl O Rama was where Bicycle Sport Shop is at the same intersection. Austin Aqua Fest used to be the a big deal at Fiesta Gardens, then moved to Auditorium Shores. We used to have Drag Boat races on Townlake. The original portion of the Holiday Inn on Town Lake was the Routuda portion. Austin Police Cars were Pale Blue and White, and the officers wore light blue shirts and Dark blue pants for uni's. The Police deparment used to be housed in the Municipal Court Building. You used to be able to see the capitol building from several vantage points in town. Pappadeaux's was originally built as Victoria Station- "A PLace for Prime Rib". Elvis shortly before he died (concert was at the Palmer Auditorium) stayed at the Hilton which is now the Red Lion directly by Highland Mall. Highland Mall originally had three major stores (Joske's, Dillard, Penny's) and the East wing was built as an addition for Foley's. Austin Community College Rio Grande Campus was originally Austin High School, the eastview Campus was the old Anderson High School.Travis High School is the oldest High School in south Austin (1953) , The best Chicken Fried Steak was at the Stallion on N. Lamar (site of the DPS Credit Union). The Crockett Center on 290 was a Best Products store. Edisons (Catalog Store) was in the Lack furniture building on W. Anderson Lane. Braker lane ended at Lamar going westbound. at that intersection was a club called the Skyline Club where the CVS Store is now.

More later...

 

Speaking of Elvis, he played at the Skyline "Ballroom" at Braker & Lamar in the mid '50s.
A friend of my brother's was in a local band that was his opening act.

Some scenes from Willie Nelson's Yellow Rose flick were filmed there.