One of the university’s most visible attributes is the twenty-seven-story Main Building, or Tower, located in the middle of campus. When a Longhorn team wins an NCAA Championship, the tower is lit completely orange with the numeral 1 displayed on each side. If you live in Austin long enough, you eventually find yourself unconsciously checking the skyline for the Tower to see what color it is, even if you don’t care. The Tower’s observation deck was closed for the second time in 1974 after a suicide jumper used it as a launching pad to pancake himself on the courtyard below. If you have read this far, you already know about the first time the tower was closed: after Eagle Scout Charles Whitman’s last stand on August 1, 1966. Well, I have good news for you, pilgrims! On September 15, 1999, the UT Tower Observation Deck was reopened. The deck offers a grand view of the UT campus and the Austin area in all directions.
Observation deck tours are available by reservation only through the Texas Union Information Center. For information on availability and the schedule of tour reservations, call toll-free 877-475-6633. Tours may be canceled owing to weather conditions and when the nation’s terrorism alert status is at Orange or higher. The UT Tower is located with the Main Building, east of Guadalupe and south of 24th Street.
In conclusion, UT has done pretty well for a place that got its start as a small campus on forty acres with one building, eight teachers, two departments, and 221 students. We should all do so well.
CHILDREN IN TREES
I’d like to tell you a little story about a big tree. No, wait. Let me tell you about the children.
No. Hold the weddin’. Let’s take them both together. Children in trees. What I know about children in trees I learned from Slim, an old black man who wore a Rainbow Bread cap, drank endless cans of warm Jax beer, and listened faithfully to the hapless Houston Astros on the radio when he’d finished washing dishes on the ranch in the evening in the summertime in a faraway kingdom known as the fifties. Slim had three cats and they were continually getting into the nurse’s garbage cans. This was a summer camp, you understand, with a lot of children and a lot of trees, and at the end of the summer the children would all leave but the trees would stay. They had too many leaves to leave. Anyway, the nurse once asked Slim why his cats were always going into her garbage cans, and Slim replied, “They wants to see the world.”
In the final stages of alcoholism in the dead of the winter in the white man’s world of the Texas Hill Country, Slim began imagining that he was seeing children in trees. Maybe there were children in trees. Who are we to judge? As Austin politico Ben Barnes once commented as he found himself embroiled in a giant real-estate development scandal, “Let he without stock cast the first stone.”
I was seven years old at the time, but I knew Hank Williams was dead, as my little brother and I rode up beautiful, glittering Congress Avenue in the backseat of a green 1953 Plymouth Cranbrook convertible driven by my dad with my mom next to him, both so much younger than I am now. I’m fifty-eight, but I read at the sixty-year-old level.
As I remember it, my dad drove us all over Austin that night. The car, the city, and the world were new and there were many wonderful sights to see. We drove past the pristine beauty of Barton Springs and saw the moonlight glinting off the waters. We drove up to the top of Mount Bonnell and watched the twinkling lights of the sleepy city below. And finally we stopped the car and got out and my brother and I ran around under the canopy of what was the biggest tree we’d ever seen in our lives, the Treaty Oak.
“According to legend, this tree was so named,” Dad told us, “because in the early 1800s Stephen F. Austin, the father of Texas, signed a treaty with the Indians beneath the branches of this giant.” He told us about how this lone survivor of a grove of fourteen trees, collectively known as the Council Oaks, was regarded as a temple of worship by the Comanches and Tonkowas long before the Anglos invaded. Mom remembered hearing a legend about the secret potion the Indian women made from the leaves of this tree, mixing them with wild honey. They believed that if maidens drank the concoction during a full moon, their braves would come safely home from battle.
In 1989 a man with a two-inch penis tried to kill the Treaty Oak by pouring a drum of powerful herbicide at its base. He was caught and given nine years in prison. But the damage had been done. The ground was treated, neutralized, and some of the soil was replaced. Half of its majestic crown was removed, but it still went into shock and lost most of its leaves. Texas billionaire and former presidential candidate H. Ross Perot handed the city a blank check and said, “Do whatever it takes to save the Treaty Oak.” With Perot’s funding, experts were brought in and a massive, heroic effort was begun.
In 1997 the Treaty Oak produced its first crop of acorns since the poisoning. These were collected and germinated and, two years later, these Baby Treaty Oaks found homes all over Texas and neighboring states. People still make pilgrimages to the once-mighty oak to pay homage to this living symbol of Austin history.
To reach the Treaty Oak, drive west on Sixth Street past Lamar Boulevard, and take a left at the next traffic light, which is Baylor. The tree is on your left, between two shopping areas at 503 Baylor Street between West Fifth and Sixth Streets.
Today only about a third of the tree remains, but it’s well worth seeing. It’s still a beautiful tree. Maybe more beautiful. And, like the rest of us, the Treaty Oak is still hanging on.
Austin is also home to four other famous trees.
MEMORIAL PECAN
Located west of the north entrance to the capital.
The original Memorial Pecan was planted on the Capitol grounds on May 30, 1945, in soil gathered from all 254 counties in Texas, to honor Texans who gave their lives in World War II. The wood from the original pecan tree was used to create a commemorative bench on the first level of the Capitol extension complex. Another tree was planted on September 24, 1993, to replace the original.
HOGG PECAN
While the actual Governor James Hogg pecan trees planted at the grave of the governor no longer live, the pecan does have an interesting place in Texas, thanks to Governor Hogg.
Native to Texas, pecan trees were once so plentiful in the state that they were cut down just to harvest a single crop of pecans. More than one hundred varieties of pecans have been developed. I was once a judge at a Pecan Nut contest in Kerrville at the local mall (or, as we Kerrverts say, the “small”) where I was instructed to examine, taste, and feel samples of pecans while their owners stood nervously by, clutching little nut leashes in their sweaty palms (or maybe I’m thinking of the Shih Tzu sheep-herding competition I marshaled). Apparently such pecan shows are not uncommon in these parts, where competition is fierce to produce nuts that offer superior taste, size, and texture.
Anyway, back to Governor Hogg. He requested that a pecan and a walnut be planted at his grave instead of a headstone. Hogg is reported to have said to his daughter and his lawyer as he lay dying: “Let my children plant at the head of my grave a pecan tree and at my feet an old-fashioned walnut tree; and when the trees bear, let the pecans and walnuts be given out among the plain people so they may plant them and make Texas a land of trees.”
Within a day of making the request, the governor died (in 1909) and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery. His last request was honored. Two pecan trees were planted at the head of his grave and a walnut tree at its foot. In 1919 the Texas legislature declared the pecan the state tree, partly in honor of Governor Hogg’s final request.
SEIDERS OAKS
Located at Seiders Springs, now a city park along Shoal Creek, between 34th and 38th Streets, the original live oak grove was where Gideon White was killed by Indians in 1842, when Texas was still an independent nation. White’s daughter Louisa Maria continued to live in the family cabin near the grove; later she married Edward Seiders and the couple settled by the area’s springs, which became known as Seiders Springs. Edward Seiders saw a business enterprise in the springs that flowed from the rock face opposite the oak grove. He
built a small resort and fashioned pools out of the springs for visitors to enjoy. By the 1870s, Seiders Springs became a tourist attraction. The Seiders built bathhouses and a dance pavilion to entertain guests. The guests were transported to Seiders Springs from the center of town.
Today, descendants of the original oaks are fixtures along the Shoal Creek greenbelt, where they stand in Seiders Springs Park.
LODGINGS
The Austin Motel’s red neon sign rises up like the phallus of a mighty phoenix out of the ashes of South Congress Avenue. Many a tourist has gazed in wonder at the sign (“The Austin Motel: Corporate-Free Since 1938!”) before turning to the nearest person to ask, “Is that a dick? That’s a dick! Gawd-damn!”
Welcome to my favorite stage-stop in town.
The Austin Motel is a brick-and-mortar reminder that the American dream can still happen to ordinary people through ordinary hard work. While it is true that there are no Austin Motel franchises or big-shot stockholders or multimillion-dollar profits, it is nevertheless a success story that bears testimony to sixty-six years of stubborn endurance that has survived several generations, economic downturns, vandalism, and the gradual deterioration of the once-friendly neighborhood. The motel’s spirit was too big to break, however. She rallied in the early 1990s when the daughter of the second owner moved back to Austin to restore the old motor inn. Dottye Dean, along with a loyal staff, many of whom had a hand in the renovation of the motel, brought it back from the brink of death. The motel is a bit more modern today, but its spirit remains the same quaint, old-fashioned, corporate-free lodging it started out as. Fittingly, there is a statue of Don Quixote on the premises, in the rear parking lot. (The motel is located at 1220 South Congress Avenue, in the SoCo shopping district.)
ANOTHER OF THE KINKSTER’S favorite lodgings is the San Jose on South Congress, practically side-by-side with the Austin Motel. Even though the two motels are near each other, they aren’t rivals. They coexist more like sisters: where the Austin Motel is the solid, down-to-earth, sensible one, the San Jose is pretty, sophisticated, and chic; she attracts the trendy clientele, the Hollywood crowd, those who want the extras without the sterility of the chains. The Austin Motel is more my speed, but don’t worry; if one doesn’t please you, the other will. (The San Jose is located at 1316 South Congress Avenue.)
AUSTIN’S MOONLIGHT TOWERS
In Bandera, Texas, is an establishment called the Frontier Times Museum, which features exhibits like the two-headed goat, the left shoe from an “unknown negress,” and, most famous of all, the Timmy D’Spain Shrine. Timmy was a young boy who went to Jesus after he was beheaded by a wire strung across the dirt road upon which he was riding his motorbike. The shrine includes Timmy’s G.I. Joe dolls, a shirt (not the one he was wearing at the time of his decapitation, much to the disappointment of generations of summer-camp children visiting the museum on field trips), and various other mementos of his short life. I never knew little Timmy, but I have visited his shrine many times whenever I got a hankering to see the left shoe of an “unknown negress.”
The Austin Moonlight Towers have nothing to do with the Frontier Times Museum or Timmy D’Spain, but according to “Ripley’s Believe It or Not,” an eleven-year-old kid named Jimmy almost died when he fell from the 165-foot tower at Guadalupe and Ninth Street, bouncing along the sides on the way down. Unlike the unfortunate Timmy, his head remained attached. He awoke from a nine-day coma with 187 stitches to mark his fall. Of course, he won’t get a shrine at the Frontier Times, but it is a bit of interesting trivia about these famed towers and Jimmy does rhyme with Timmy.
I have lived in Austin on and off for much of my life. The Moonlight Towers were never a part of my guided tours for my out-of-town friends. Actually, I never gave any out-of-town friends any guided tours, but I am speaking hypothetically, both of the tours and of the friends. I didn’t really discover the Moonlight Towers until I started researching this book. Suddenly I started seeing them everywhere.
The Towers have been in almost continuous operation for over one hundred years, and have been turned off only twice. The first time was for a week in 1905, and the second time was briefly in 1973, during the national energy crisis.
The Austin Moonlight Towers were purchased by the city from Detroit in 1894. A single tower cast a bright light from its six carbon-arc lamps that illuminated an area three thousand feet in diameter. In those days, such light towers were common in cities, and were used in place of streetlights. Mercury vapor lamps are now used in these 165-foot triangular cast-iron and wrought-iron structures.
Austin is the only city in the United States that still uses this once-popular tower lighting system. The towers are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Seventeen of the original thirty-one towers are still in use.
In 1995, during the celebration of Austin’s one hundredth birthday, the city completely restored each tower and replaced them at their original sites. Most of the towers can be found in residential areas near downtown. A few remain in the downtown area. The towers are landmarks you can take your friends to see after you drive them by where all the really interesting and cool places used to be.
Where to find Austin’s Moonlight Towers:
Nueces and West 4th
Guadalupe and West 9th
Blanco and West 12th
Rio Grande and West 12th
San Antonio and West 15th
Nueces and West 22nd
Speedway and West 41st
Lydia and East 1st (Cesar Chavez)
Trinity and East 1st (Cesar Chavez)
Trinity and East 11th
Coleto and East 13th
Chicon and East 19th (MLK)
Leona and Pennsylvania
Eastside Drive and Leland
South 1st and West Monroe
Canterbury and West Lynn
Zilker Park
HAUNTED PLACES IN AUSTIN
The most famous place to see dead people, or, using the more politically correct term, Apparition-Americans, is the city’s own State Capitol.
The Capitol’s oldest ghost is that of Robert Marshall Love, who was the state comptroller early into the twentieth century. He was shot on June 30th, 1903, while at his desk. W. G. Hill, a former employee of the state comptroller’s department, shot him, and as Mr. Love lay dying, he said, “I have no idea why he shot me. May the Lord bless him and forgive him. I cannot say more.” His body was later buried at Tehuacana, his hometown. His spirit stayed in the state capitol, where it can be encountered as it wanders the second floor of the east wing during off-hours.
Occasionally it has been reported that he appears to visitors and watches them as they tour the building. Sometimes he speaks, saying “Good day,” but he disappears before a reply can be given. He has even been captured on security camera videotapes, where he is seen standing near the old Comptroller of Public Accounts office. Those who encounter the ghostly Mr. Love report that he is always very polite and well dressed in a business suit that appears to be from the early 1900s. I have never personally seen him, but that could be because I have never actually been inside the State Capitol.
THE DRISKILL HOTEL is another hangout for Austin’s Apparition-Americans. It opened its door to the public on December 20, 1886, on a city block purchased by cattle baron Jesse Lincoln Driskill for $7,500. Colonel Driskill (an honorary title given him by the Confederate Army during the Civil War) paid out $400,000 to build the hotel. He hired the best designers of the time, Jasper N. Preston and Sons of Austin, to design the original cream-colored brick and limestone building. The good colonel had busts of himself and his sons, Tobe and Bud, installed around the top of each entrance.
Soon the Driskill became the premier showpiece for the frontier town of Austin, the place to be seen if you were a politician or an aspiring politician. On January 1, 1887, the Driskill hosted its first inaugural ball for newly elected Texas governor Sul Ross. In October 1898, Austin’s first long-distance telephone call was pla
ced from the lobby. Less than a hundred years later, former president Lyndon Johnson often watched election returns in the Driskill. The hotel was the headquarters for the media during Johnson’s administration. Certainly, history has been made within the walls of this “frontier queen” hostelry. The Driskill has been the meeting place of legislators, lobbyists, and the social leaders of Austin, and was the site of inaugural balls, elaborate banquets, receptions, and university dances and ceremonies. Like its neighbor the State Capitol, the Driskill also has its own ghosts.
Those who have been in the presence of these ghosts say that one of them is certainly Colonel Driskill, who so loved his hotel that he never left. According to Austin Ghost Tours, Driskill announces his presence by the smell of cigar smoke. Unfortunately, this means that Colonel Driskill copped the entrance I had planned to use in my ghostly form. Now, for the sake of originality, I am limited to flatulence or other gas-emitting preambles to announce my presence to the living (or, in my continuing effort to be politically correct, Animated Americans).
An Apparition-American who co-haunts the Driskill with the colonel is the four-year-old daughter of a U.S. senator. The child haunts the grand staircase that goes down to the lobby of the hotel. The story goes that she was playing near the stairs and was killed when she slipped and fell while chasing a ball. The front desk staff has heard her bouncing the ball down the steps and laughing.
More recently, the ghost of the “Houston Bride” has appeared on the fourth floor, hurrying to room 29 in the early morning with her arms full of bags and packages. According to the Austin Ghost Tour, the living woman checked into that room in the early 1990s. Her fiancé had unexpectedly called off their marriage, which left the spurned bride inconsolable. Once settled into her room, she decided that a shopping spree, courtesy of her exfiancé’s credit cards, would be just the thing to make her feel better. Three days later, concerned hotel staff investigated her room because she had not been seen since she breezed out of the fourth-floor elevator with her arms filled with bags and packages. Much to the horror of the staff, the Houston Bride was found dead in the bathtub, where she had committed suicide by shooting herself in the stomach. She walks the halls of the fourth floor (but not in a long black veil). Many other ghosts have been seen in the hotel, but the Houston Bride, the ball-chasing four-year-old, and Colonel Driskill are the best known.
The Great Psychedelic Armadillo Picnic Page 7
