A drive down Austin memory lane

Austin has grown fast, but it has grown from a tiny urban core — mean­ing that we have less pre-World War II build­ings than prob­ably any other city our size in the South. Many neigh­bor­hoods quite close to down­town were developed in the 1960’s or later — the city basic­ally ended 3 miles in each direc­tion until 1960. This means you can live in verd­ant, “The Wonder Years”-esque subur­bia and still be down­town in 15 minutes.

I stumbled upon a few old maps of Austin that illus­trate this fact, but they also tell an inter­est­ing story about the names of our high­ways today versus what they were called then.

Here is Austin, 1940. Population 87,930!

Today:  Highway 290 runs through Southwest Austin via Ben White Boulevard, about 4 miles south of down­town, then runs along IH-35 north­ward through the cent­ral corridor, then vectors north­east­ward about 5 miles north of down­town, head­ing for Houston.

Then:  Highway 290 ran along what is now Lamar Boulevard (then called Fredericksburg Road), then east­ward on Barton Springs, over­lap­ping with Highway 81 on Congress for a few blocks before align­ing itself along East 1st Street (aka Cesar Chavez) before taking the current align­ment of south Highway 183.  This map says it still leads to Houston, so it must have connec­ted with the current align­ment of 290 some­where further east of Austin.

Other inter­est­ing things to note:

• While Hghway 81 still exists in much of the US, running through North Texas and West Central Oklahoma, it no longer exists in the Austin area.  It is roughly the north-south arter­ial route that Interstate 35 would come to occupy — some Austinites might remem­ber as late as the early 1990’s that the Highway 81 desig­na­tion could be seen on signage along the IH-35 front­age road.   In 1940, Highway 81 ran along Congress Avenue, Lavaca/Guadalupe (which may have been erro­neously listed on this map as Guadalupe Boulevard; it is actu­ally Guadalupe Street, at least today), then followed Georgetown Road past the city limits.  I believe 1940’s Georgetown Road is now today’s North Lamar Boulevard past the Triangle shop­ping center / 45th Street area.
• State Highway 29 no longer comes anywhere near cent­ral Austin, but did back then.  Today it runs from Georgetown (30 miles north) to the city of Burnet (60 miles north­w­est), and was appro­pri­ately named Burnet Road.  Today’s Burnet Road no longer takes you to the city of Burnet, but remains a large arter­ial road through North Austin.  29 also goes south­east­ward on this map, empty­ing out near today’s Bergstrom Airport.  Where it even­tu­ally would lead in 1940, I have no idea, as this is no longer the street’s desig­na­tion (it is now 183).
• Highway 81 was paired with Highway 79, which now ends in Round Rock, 20 miles north.
• State Highway 20 no longer exists, at least anywhere near Austin.  It was also known as Manor Road, which is still a major road today.
• East Avenue is the road that would become Interstate 35.  However, it ended at Manor (at least in naming) and became Cameron Road.  Cameron Road still exists today, but due to the free­way being built out now begins at 51st Street, 2 miles north of where it did in 1940.
• Dam Road is now known as Lake Austin Boulevard.
• There is a road called State Street, roughly where Perry Lane is today, that I believe no longer exists in name (or may take the align­ment of other roads).
• Airport Road seems to be the same thing as today’s East 51st Street and also appears to be differ­ent from the current Airport Boulevard, which runs along the rail­road tracks northwest/southeastward.
• Mansfield Dam (on Lake Travis) was known as Marshall Ford Dam, and the way to get to it was via Hancock Drive (this likely connec­ted as it does today to Ranch Road 2222).

Let’s fast forward to Austin 1953:

The differ­ences in just 10–15 years:

• Lamar Boulevard is named and built out as it is today.  It is still, however, the align­ment of Highway 290 on the south side of town.
• The “Interregional Highway” is partially built.  That is today’s Interstate 35; the altern­ate name Interregional was popu­lar in usage until the 1980’s.  Old school Austinites like myself remem­ber it from maps and street signs, but it is prob­ably an unknown name to many people — Interregional gener­ally only refers to the original build-out of IH-35 from the Colorado River to Cameron Road.
• Highway 290 East now follows its current path, pick­ing back up right past Cameron Road as it does today.
• Highway 183 is built/designated, although it now follows what was Highway 29’s align­ment (Guadalupe/Lavaca) in North Austin, and now follows East 7th out of town.  From the Colorado River south­ward, 183 today is pretty much the same as it was then.
• Highway 71 appears, at least on the east half of the city (over­lapped with 183).
• Airport Boulevard is built out.
• Balcones Road seems to follow the current path of Mount Bonnell Road, along the Dry Creek canyon.
• The Yacht Club, which may or may not have exis­ted in 1940, appears on this map where the current Westlake Drive is.
• Barton Springs is listed as Zilker Springs on this map.  That may have been a factual error, or perhaps it was also known as such back in the day.
• Guadalupe Street is actu­ally labeled “THE DRAG”, the endur­ing popu­lar nick­name for the portion between 19th/MLK and 29th.

And finally, here’s a 1956 Humble Oil map of Austin:

• The Interregional Highway now crosses the Colorado River, but does not carry the Interstate 35 desig­na­tion just yet.
• Highway 183 is now aligned along Airport Boulevard.  Today, 183 is about 2–3 miles east of Airport, but also follows a NW/SE track.
• East 7th Street is also desig­nated as Business 183 and Highway 71.

Subtle things to note on all maps:

• Dean Keeton/26th does not yet exist as built out today, so there was no north­ern connector road on the UT campus.
• Koenig Lane (2222) does not exist on any map, and there­fore was prob­ably just a local street or non-existent until the mid 1950’s.  Given the archi­tec­ture of the houses/businesses on this street, which are late 1950’s-early 1960’s in origin, it might have just been a resid­en­tial street that they picked because it connec­ted with 290 at Airport.
• Do Alice Avenue (near 45th and Lamar) or Forest Trail exist anymore?
• Mopac is not even shown as a rail­road track much less a proposed high­way.  It was not built until the late 1960’s-late 1970’s.
• West Lake Hills or Rollingwood do not exist on the map (and I am not sure if there were any subdi­vi­sions in this part of town yet).
• Austin was balanced in terms of east vs. west.  Today, the west and north sides sprawl many many more miles than the east or south sides do.  There are suburbs in continu­ous devel­op­ment for 25 miles north and west, but Austin pretty much ends about 6–7 miles east and about 10 miles south.

In 1940, Austin had 87,930 people; in 1950, 132,459 people, and in 1960, 186,545. As a frame of refer­ence, Austin’s city popu­la­tion is 757,688 today (as of the 2007 census estim­ate), and the metro­pol­itan area is 1,652,602, the 2nd fast­est grow­ing in the nation.