Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Catching a local band at the
Continental Club
(
Click here
) or one of the other hundreds of live-music ven-
ues around town.
Watching the nightly exodus of America's largest urban
bat colony
(
Click here
) under the Congress Avenue
Bridge in summer.
Jumping into the icy waters of
Barton Springs Pool
(
Click here
) for instant relief when the heat is too much.
Enjoying a margarita at
Trudy's Texas Star
(
Click here
): frozen or on the rocks, plain or with a sangria
swirl, they're practically perfect.
Browsing booth after booth of oddities, treasures, memorabilia and tchotchkes at
Uncommon Objects
(
Click
here
).
Going honky-tonkin' or playing chicken-shit bingo at
Ginny's Little Longhorn
(
Click here
).
Creating your own perfect blend of ice cream plus toppings at
Amy's Ice Cream
(
Click here
).
History
Things happened quickly in the early days of Austin. In 1837 - just one year after Texas
had won its independence from Mexico - settlers founded the town of Waterloo on the
banks of the Colorado River. By 1939 the town had been chosen as the state capital and
renamed Austin, after Stephen F Austin, a man who had colonized the area and come to
be known as the Father of Texas.
The city experienced its first boom after the arrival of the Houston and Texas Central
Railroad in 1871, and by 1900 the town was thoroughly modern and had a beautiful new
capitol building that was the largest in the US. (In fact, when it opened, it was the seventh-
largest building in the world.)
Fast forward to the 1990s, when the tech industry brought another boom. With a well-
educated populace (thanks to all those University of Texas grads who never could quite
bear to move away), Austin attracted major tech companies. It wasn't all UT grads fueling
the movement: Michael Dell founded his computer company in his dorm room in 1984
and promptly dropped out of UT.
Between tech types, UT students, musicians and politicians, Austin has a near-constant
influx of new residents, and recent estimates have 150 or so people moving to Austin each
day. Things are constantly changing in the capital city, for better or for worse.
