Long ago my dabbling in Austin history introduced me to the rich array of historic postcards portraying our city’s past. I bought my first Austin postcard – which depicts an early scene along Mount Bonnell Road – for $5 on Ebay. I have since amassed three albums of local postcards dating back to the 1890s, most obtained for less than $5 apiece. Certain landmarks stand out in any era - the Capitol, Congress Avenue and downtown skyline views are notable examples - while other, more obscure landmarks cause one to wonder just what they were thinking back then. Even cards featuring the odd scenes help shed light on Austin’s former cultural landscape, especially if there is a written message on the back. Let’s take a look at some snapshots of the past.
Here’s a view of Congress Avenue looking north from Third Street. The streets are paved, indicating that the card dates from no earlier than 1905, the year Congress Avenue became the first paved Austin road. An electric streetcar plies the Avenue at left, while a horse-drawn buggy is seen even farther to the left. Notice the moonlight tower in the right foreground. Austin erected 31 of these towers in 1895 to light the city’s streets. The seventeen that remain – a number that includes the tower used to create the Zilker Park Christmas tree - are preserved as historic landmarks. Finally, like Sherlock Holmes’ dog that didn’t bark in the night, something about this scene should strike you by its absence: there are no cars.
This is an even earlier postcard showing Congress Avenue north from Sixth Street. It’s difficult to appreciate without closely examining the card, but Austin’s main thoroughfare here is still a dirt road. At left is the First National Bank Building, built in 1875-1876 by the man also responsible for building the Governor’s Mansion, Pease Mansion and many other Austin landmarks, Abner Cook. Will Porter, who later became famous as the author O. Henry, worked as a teller for the bank from 1891 to 1894 and later was convicted of embezzling bank funds. Notice how tranquil downtown Austin appears in the photograph. Only a few carriages work their way along the street, people stroll haphazardly in all directions and two men converse casually in the middle of the Avenue!
Who's that man in the cage at the First National Bank? None other than Will Porter, better remembered as the author O. Henry. Porter worked as a teller for the bank from 1891 to 1894. (Photo courtesy of the Austin History Center.)
This one’s a head-scratcher. Why Tobin’s Book Store, publisher of this postcard, deemed this view remarkable is a mystery. I suspect that, at the time, people were so enthralled with the idea of buying photographic cards for sending messages that just about anything sold. The precise location of this scene is also a mystery, although I suspect the same view today would encompass concrete roads, traffic lights, neon signs and lots and lots of cars. And I doubt that any barbed wire fences survive in the immediate neighborhood. The image’s cheerless look matches the message written on the back, “Beck, Why on Earth don’t you ans[wer] my letter?”
Not a postcard but a snapshot, this image shows a proud man, possibly Jack Ezelle, showing off the snazzy automobile owned by Jack Ezelle’s Sinclair Service Station at 19th Street and San Jacinto Boulevard. Born in 1909, Jack Ezelle was the son of John Ezelle, a manager for Southwestern Bell. Jack attended the University of Texas before joining his father at Southwestern Bell as a salesman. By 1935 he had opened his service station, but evidently sold out within a few years. The 1940 Austin City Directory shows him running the Jack Ezelle Company out of the Norwood Building. Customers came to Jack to purchase insurance, take out mortgage loans, and buy or sell real estate.
If you’ve got something to sell in Austin, it’s always a good bet to slip in an implied connection to the burnt orange. This 1957 postcard advertises charter buses available for rent from the Austin Transit Corporation. The bus just happens to be parked in front of an unnamed university’s most renowned landmark. As the card says, “Last minute shopping for transportation is risky . . . you can get the BEST and the SAFEST by making arrangements now.” The card was sent as a New Year’s greeting to Mrs. C. L. Dowdey in Bakersfield, California with the happy pronouncement “This is Chas. project!”
Raise your hand if you know that Austin once boasted a Texas Confederate Women’s Home. Keep it raised if you know that the building still exists. I’m guessing there aren’t too many hands still in the air. Opened by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1907 as a home for widows and spouses of Confederate veterans, as well as for women who contributed significantly to the Confederacy, the Confederate Women’s Home functioned until 1964. The building now houses a nonprofit group, AGE of Central Texas. My favorite touch on the card? The hand-painted Confederate flag.
You didn’t think that Confederate women would have their own home unless the men had one as well, did you? The Confederate Veterans Home pictured here opened November 1, 1886. The last veteran resident died in 1954 at the age of 108. About that time the home began admitting veterans from the Spanish-American War and World War I, but in 1963 all residents were transferred to Kerrville State Hospital and the building became an annex of the Austin State Hospital. An acquaintance of mine who lived on West 6th Street in the 1960s recalls having to pass what looked to her like a haunted house on her way to school. “I ran as fast as I could,” she said. Even the ghosts lost their home when the structure was razed in 1970 to make way for UT married student housing.
This card offers a view of Congress Avenue looking north from Fifth Street. The 8-story Scarbrough and Hicks building at left opened in 1910 and was Austin’s first skyscraper. Cattleman George Littlefield followed suit a year later by constructing his own skyscraper, the Littlefield Building at right. Notice the lined roof over Littlefield’s building. This area served as an open-air garden which hosted parties, concerts and other public gatherings until Littlefield realized that, at eight stories, his building was only one of the two tallest buildings in Austin. By enclosing the garden and constructing a more permanent roof, Littlefield added a ninth story and – ta da! – his was the tallest skyscraper in town. Perhaps Scarbrough and Hicks took solace in the massive ego-boosting flag adorning their edifice.
Back when periodic flooding of the Colorado River limited development south of the Congress Avenue bridge, the towers of The Deaf and Dumb Institute offered the best vantage points for viewing downtown Austin. Several important features are visible. At upper left (A) is the Old Main Building of the University of Texas. Designed by Frederick Ruffini, the man also responsible for the main buildings at St. Edwards University and the Deaf and Dumb Institute, Old Main was demolished amid controversy in the 1930s to make way for the New Main Building, better known as the UT Tower. Just below the Capitol are Austin’s two skyscrapers, the Scarbrough and Hicks Building (B) and Littlefield Building (C). A block east of the Littlefield Building sits the Driskill Hotel (D), which survived threatened demolition in the 1970s to remain one of Austin’s premier hotels. In 1930, Lyndon Johnson had his first date with a shy young woman named Claudia Taylor in the Driskill. Thirty-four years later he and Claudia, known better to us as Lady Bird, watched the presidential election returns in one of the Driskill’s suites. At far right is St. Mary’s Academy (E), a parish school for girls founded by the Holy Cross Sisters in 1885 in answer to a call from St. Mary’s Catholic Church. The school moved out of the building in 1947; in 1954 the structure was demolished. That Austin residents took great pride in the building is proven by its use on numerous early 20th-century postcards. The hill upon which it sat – now reduced in height to accommodate a subsequent construction project - drew notice from Edwin Waller, the government agent in charge of constructing the city in 1839. To take advantage of the wonderful view, Waller erected the presidential mansion of Mirabeau Lamar on the summit.
When the International and Great Northern Railroad announced plans to build a new depot on the southwest corner of Third and Congress in the 1880s, the Austin Daily Statesman boasted, “Austin is to have the most complete and beautiful depot in the state.” This building served the city for almost seven decades before the demise of rail travel doomed it to demolition. Written in 1908, the chirpy message on the back sent to a resident of the Deaf and Dumb Institute reads, “Dear Terrie, I hope that you will be sure glad to get a postcard from your dear friend Cora.”
J. S. and Alta Woodard wanted something unique for their planned motor court on the northeast corner of 45th and Guadalupe streets. Hugo Kuehne, founding dean of the University of Texas School of Architecture, came up with this design, which incorporates slabs of petrified wood from Glen Rose. Strategically located along State Highway 2, which connected Dallas and San Antonio via Austin, the Petrified Forest Lodge thrived until the construction of I-35 in the 1960s. Declining intercity traffic meant fewer motel customers and in the early 1990s the curtain closed on one of Austin’s most unique buildings. The cookie-cutter Walgreens building that now occupies the site contains some of the original petrified wood in its walls but otherwise the Petrified Forest Lodge survives only as a memory.
I like this card for the street-level view of the light poles lining the space between the streetcar tracks of Congress Avenue. Taken from Fourth Street, the photograph nicely displays Austin’s first two skyscrapers, the Littlefield Building at right with its open-air roof garden and the Scarbrough and Hicks building at left flying its enormous American flag. Keevil’s Restaurant at left is listed at 422 Congress in city directories from 1910-1912. Since the Littlefield Building opened in 1911, the photograph was taken either that year or the next, but no later. Born in England in 1865, restaurant operator Frank H. Keevil immigrated to Austin in 1882, where he lived until his death in 1928.
At left in this 1922 postcard is City Hall at Eighth and Colorado and next to it Fire Station #1. This version of City Hall began life in 1907. In 1938 workers demolished the fire house, stripped the City Hall building of its façade, expanded its footprint and wrapped the result in an Art Deco exterior. The building remains in use by the city but municipal headquarters moved to new digs on Second Street several years ago. The Eighth Street site is notable for the log Texas Capitol building erected there in 1839 by Edwin Waller. In a hurry to complete the government buildings before the arrival of Congress only five months hence, Waller began construction on the Capitol before finalizing the layout of Austin’s streets. As a result, the Capitol sat a half-block west of Congress Avenue, with outbuildings extending beyond Colorado Street. One of the wells supplying the building with water sat in the middle of this street.
Finally, here’s an eastward view of Sixth Street taken from Colorado. The Scarbrough and Hicks building is partially visible at right with the Littlefield building sitting cattycorner across the Avenue. Note that Littlefield’s open-air garden has been enclosed to create a ninth story and that the building now boasts a flag that competes with that of Scarbrough and Hicks. At extreme left is the First National Bank Building mentioned previously. Builder Abner Cook owned the land on which he erected this graceful office building. For years prior to its construction, local newspaper editors had urged Cook in print to replace the dilapidated buildings on “Cook’s Corner” with something more modern and elegant. In the 20th century this beautiful structure was demolished in favor of a Woolworth’s. One America Center now occupies the entire block, including the former Cook’s Corner.
There you have it, old-time Austin as seen through the eyes of its early postcard entrepreneurs. Whether displaying beloved landmarks or mundane anonymous scenery, each of these images was intended to promote the city and earn a profit from a public hungry for variety in the novel world of penny postcards. The next time you peruse a postcard rack, try to imagine which images will earn nodding approval decades hence and which ones will cause folks to wonder just what we were thinking back then.