Laurel Seymour knows who Austin’s first female lifeguard was. Well, she’s pretty certain.

“I know Binnie Seymour was the first lady lifeguard in Austin, Texas,�� she told KUT’s ATXplained project. “But can you provide us some proof?��

Binnie Seymour is Laurel’s paternal grandmother: Grandma Binnie.

Binnie was born in 1940, the second of four children. She said she spent much of her childhood in Westlake Hills where her dad attempted to make a living catching minnows and often brought the kids along.

“We were kind of river rats, so to speak,�� Binnie said. “I’ve been on every creek and every river around Texas.��

In the mid-1950s, when Binnie was 14, she got a job in the locker room at Deep Eddy Pool. She earned 50 cents an hour taking and retrieving swimmers�� clothes from lockers.

A couple weeks later, Binnie said, her bosses approached her with a proposition: Would she like to be considered for a promotion to lifeguard?

“If I could pass the test, then I could have the job,�� she said she was told.

Binnie said the lifeguard test consisted of a simulation in which she had to save UT Austin football players who pretended to drown. Binnie, who barely weighed 120 pounds, did her best to rescue the linebackers, fullbacks and wide receivers.

“I probably grabbed some of them by the head of the hair, but I pulled ‘em in,�� she said.

She got the job and a raise to 90 cents an hour. Then, Binnie said, her boss told her she had earned another badge.

“My boss told me, ‘You are the first lady lifeguard in Austin, Texas,'�� she said. Binnie had no reason not to believe him.

But what would have been a notable moment in the city’s history went unmarked. Binnie said she doesn’t remember a reporter writing a story or a photographer taking her photo for the local newspaper.

And at 86 years old today, Binnie said there are few people still alive to verify her story. This makes confirming the tale she has told her grandchildren that much more difficult.

“I wish a lot of the people were still alive,�� Binnie said.

A shortage of lifeguards

Women break barriers when history requires it of them.

During World War I and World War II, women took jobs to support the war effort and to fill vacancies left by the men who had been drafted. Women drove trucks, operated radios and toiled in factories �� and, it turns out, sat atop lifeguard stands.

“Many of the old timers that frequent Bartons will recall the good old days when the big husky lifeguards watched over the flock,�� a reporter for the Austin American wrote in March 1943. “[H]owever such things are in the past for the duration, and beautiful girls will grace many of the lifeguard stands of the nation this season.��

A month earlier, the same paper reported this news with a bit more of a cautionary tone.

“Habitues of Austin’s several municipal swimming pools may as well get ready to have their safety in the water watched over this summer by women lifeguards, Joe Prowse, assistant city recreation director warned Wednesday,�� a reporter wrote.

That same article included the names of two women who had signed up to safeguard pool visitors that summer: Dorothy Kerbow and Jean Parker. Parker had not yet been assigned to a pool, but Kerbow would work at Westenfield Pool, which still operates in the neighborhood of the same name.

These women are the first documented female lifeguards in Austin.

The article included little other information about Kerbow and Parker. KUT News was unable to find additional details about Parker or any living relatives. But Kerbow, because of her distinct last name, was easier to find.

Kerbow was born in San Marcos in 1918 and grew up in New Braunfels, just south of Austin.

Her son, Dave, who owned the seafood restaurant Catfish Parlour in North Austin for decades, said his mother, like Binnie, spent much of her childhood in water.

“She had the Comal River, the Guadalupe River, Landa Park, all those places to swim,�� he said.

In the mid-1940s, the city was looking for women to fill lifeguard stands, and Dave said his mom was looking to make extra cash. She passed the test easily and began working as a lifeguard that summer. He said she worked at city pools on weekends and holidays for nearly a decade.

Dave described Kerbow as ahead of her time �� a woman who spoke her mind and rarely took no for an answer.

“She was very strong-willed,�� he said.

Kerbow began working in an Austin post office in 1950. She moved out to Wimberley 20 years later to take the job of postmaster. Dave said his mother lived in a house with a pool and swam often.

Kerbow passed away in 2013 at 94 years old.

How a swimming affair became a love affair

So, Binnie Seymour was not Austin’s first lady lifeguard. She and her family took the news well.

“I guess I lose a little bit of a bragging right,�� Laurel, Binnie’s granddaughter, said.

“Well, that’s interesting,�� Binnie said when told about Dorothy Kerbow.

And, as small-town Austin would have it, Binnie knew the Kerbows. She attended Austin High School with Dorothy's oldest child, Karen Kerbow.

“She was blonde-headed,�� Binnie recalled. “And she was just very sweet.��

Even though Binnie cannot claim the title of Austin's first female lifeguard, the hours spent swimming netted her something else: a love story.

While Binnie grew up spending time in rivers and creeks throughout Central Austin, she said she never learned how to swim well. Then, she met a boy named Billy when she was just a teenager.

“Billy could swim like a fish,�� Binnie said. “I just watched him swim, and before long, I was swimming like a fish, too.��

They got jobs together in the locker room at Deep Eddy Pool and became lifeguards around the same time. Binnie said this gave her the chance to keep an eye on her then-boyfriend.

“I just thought, ‘Oh, that’ll be fun! Billy’s a lifeguard and then I can watch Billy,'" she said. "I watched him to make sure he didn’t flirt with other girls.��

Binnie was an amateur photographer and the two often took photos at Mansfield Dam, with one or both of them standing on the dam’s edge.

In 1958, Binnie and Billy married. Most of the past seven decades, they said, have been spent happily �� and in water.

Kimberlee Ralph gets a lot of phone calls at her job, working for a lawmaker at the Texas Capitol. People call to get help with problems they’re experiencing. Or sometimes they call to tell their representatives how they want them to vote on such and such issue. Usually, it’s all pretty routine. But sometimes a caller really sticks out.

That’s where Reta Ward comes in.

“She is 94 and going blind and can hardly hear,�� Ralph said. “But it is important to her to call all the elected representatives in the Texas legislature and to share her perspective on things.��

Ralph has talked to Ward multiple times over the past couple legislative sessions while working for a Democratic state representative from Laredo. Ralph said Ward stood out among other callers because knew a lot about the issues and how the Legislature works. She was funny. She was kind. She defied some preconceptions that Ralph, 35, had about older, rural Texans. She reminded Ralph of her grandmother �� and of why Ralph got into politics.

“In a context where there’s a lot of people with power and money moving through this place, she stands out as like a touchstone of home and reality,�� Ralph said.

Ralph wanted to know more about Ward: What she’s seen over the decades, why she keeps calling all the lawmakers and just hear her tell some stories.

So she asked KUT's ATXplained project to help.

A few days later, I called Ward. She lives in Bastrop. She is 94 and going blind. She had her shoulder replaced not too long ago.

And yes, she calls all 181 state lawmakers every legislative session.

“I’ve called everybody twice so far this year,�� Ward said.

It's not just state lawmakers she calls. Ward regularly rings congresspeople and city council members, too.

I wondered how she got so interested in public policy and politics.

It all started when she was a little girl.

She recalled when W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel came to visit the small town she lived in on the western edge of the Hill Country. O’Daniel was president of the Burrus Mill and Elevator Company in Fort Worth. In 1938, he was running for governor.

He brought his company band �� The Light Crust Doughboys �� to the campaign stop.

Ward, then just about 8 years old, said she was captured by the spectacle of it.

“That tweaked my child’s mind,�� she said.

It was around that same time when she would learn about a different kind of political spectacle.

Her mother was working at what is now Austin State Hospital, rooming there with three other women.

One day, state lawmakers told her to come and testify.

Ward’s mother didn’t know what it was about, but she reluctantly went.

“When she comes home she’s madder than the July heat,�� Ward said. “My grandmother said ‘Well what did they say?�� And my mother said, ‘All those dirty old men wanted to know was how lesbians had sex.’��

As Ward tells it, the lawmakers were looking to purge gay people from the state’s workforce. She said they hauled her mom in because the women she roomed with at the hospital were lesbians.

“That really made an impression on me,�� Ward said. "This was my first go-around with prejudice."

Ward has lived all over the state. In Lubbock, she developed a particular interest in water policy. She said she saw the ways water was being wasted.

She made her opinions known, but it wasn't until she moved back to Central Texas in the early 1990s that she started calling all the lawmakers.

Why?

“Somebody has to stand up and say what needs to be done,�� she said. “Somebody has to do it. And it falls on me. Or at least that's what I feel like I have to do.��

About a week after we talked on the phone, Ward and I met at the Texas Capitol to knock on Ralph’s office door. She greeted Ward warmly.

We shuffled into a back room in the office and sat around a big table.

Ralph asked some questions. Ward spun some yarns about the Texas political characters she’s encountered over the years. And then we talked about the phone calls.

“Do you think it makes a difference when you call all the legislators?�� I asked.

“I am hoping. I am hoping,�� Ward said.

We turned to Ralph, as someone who answers those calls. Does it make a difference?

“It absolutely makes a difference for staff to hear people like you,�� Ralph said. “I have seen that change a vote.��

“Wonderful, wonderful,�� Ward said. “I had no idea.��

I think we all know that calling your lawmaker can’t make a difference every time. But maybe it can make a difference some of the time. And for Ward, that’s enough.

This story was originally performed at ATXplained Live at Bass Concert Hall on Oct. 23, 2024. 

Each year, Barton Springs Pool attracts thousands of visitors from all walks of life and all over the world. They visit the pool to swim, lie out on the lawn and even do yoga. For that moment, it's the one thing everyone has in common �� a day at the pool.

But it wasn't always like this. Before 1962, Barton Springs was open only to certain people �� white people.

Chris Schulman wanted to know the history of segregation at Barton Springs Pool, so he asked ATXplained. "I’m especially interested in how it ended."

Like many places in the South, the city had what were called Jim Crow laws, which banned people of color from using many public facilities. A city plan adopted in 1928 also forced Black residents to East Austin, where there weren’t a lot of public facilities like parks and swimming pools.

Sarah Marshall, who coordinates historic preservation with the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, said Rosewood Park opened in 1929 as the first and only park African Americans were able to use. A second park for Black Austinites didn't open until about 1959.

"We definitely as a city recognize that the African American community at that time was extremely underserviced by the city �� and not just in parks," Marshall said.

The Supreme Court desegregated schools with its Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954. The next year, the high court . But it took years for public places in Austin to integrate. In 1960, Barton Springs was still segregated.

The summer of 1960

Every year, graduating seniors at Austin High School would celebrate with a picnic at Barton Springs Pool.

In 1960, Austin High had several Black students. Joan Means Khabele was among them.

"The principal called me in and said, ‘I consider you to be the leader of the Black kids in your class. So I want you to go and tell them none of you can go to the senior picnic because Barton Springs and Zilker Park are segregated,'" Khabele told Austin PBS in a 2013 interview.

Khabele wasn’t going to just let it go �� and neither were several of her classmates.

“As soon as me and several other people found out, we were fairly outraged," said David Martinez, one of a handful of Chicanos at the school that year.

Martinez said he’d dealt with racism his whole life and had learned to fight back �� even in the smallest ways.

“It started off �� 'You're not allowed to wear sandals,' so I wore sandals," he said. "Then they said I couldn't wear shorts, so I wore shorts. Then they said you couldn't have facial hair, and so I grew what my uncles teased me [as] ... a football mustache �� 11 on each side.�� 

Chicanos were allowed to swim at the pool, but Martinez said it wasn’t something Hispanic families really did because of the cost and the distance.

Still, he wanted to fight back. For him, this was about equality. So he urged Khabele and several other classmates to get a petition started.

"We believe that every senior at [Stephen F. Austin High School] should be allowed to participate in all the recreation activities at the picnic, regardless of race," the petition, written by sophomores and juniors, stated.

The petition

There's a copy of that petition at the Austin History Center. It's blank.

According to Khabele and several others, the students got people to sign the petition �� and not just classmates, but also parents and other community members. It was passed around at school, dropped in teacher mailboxes, even slipped inside the school newspaper.

"The cafeteria was the social network," said Hunter Ellinger, who was a junior at Austin High then.

Ellinger's parents were union leaders. So when his father heard they were organizing around the senior picnic, he offered to make copies of the petition.

It wasn't long before parents and other people started calling the City Council.

"Now you have to realize that at this time Austin was really a pretty small town," Ellinger said. "It especially had a small town dynamic. So that was enough to make a splash."

The next day, Ellinger said, the principal announced that all seniors, including the eight Black students, could go to the picnic. No other people of color would be allowed.

"They eventually said, 'Well you can go to the picnic,' but they weren’t going to change the policy forever," Khabele told PBS. "They were just saying, 'Oh let them go. It’s just eight.'�� 

The Black students still weren’t allowed in the pool.

Khabele said she wasn’t going to just sit by at the picnic tables and watch her classmates swim. She was getting in the water �� rules be damned.

"So we started swimming," she said. "They really don’t know at first. Then they notice �� 'Oh, there’s some Black kids in there.' They want to take us out. ... So we'd get out, go around, catch our breaths, and we come back again."

This small act of defiance set off a series of protests and swim-ins over the next couple summers.

Students, including Martinez and Ellinger, would find ways to make their voices heard, particularly at the pool's booth where they wouldn’t sell tickets to Black people.

Janet Means Scott, Khabele's younger sister, said several of them would go to the pool and overwhelm the ticket booth three or four times a week during the summer.

"We made no noise," Scott said. "We just got in line and got back in line over and over for an hour and a half or two hours.�� 

They did this for two years. Finally, in July 1962, the city changed its policy. Now anyone could buy a ticket to Barton Springs, regardless of race.

No records

Except KUT could find no documents of the change. There is no city record of any vote by the council or a change in policy from the parks department. There aren't any photos or videos �� or even newspaper articles �� of these protests or swim-ins.

The petition at the Austin History Center is blank. There isn't a copy of the one students and community members signed.

Martinez said that was on purpose.

“I kept thinking they would pull the trigger and arrest us all," he said. "But no. They let us go swim. They weren’t going to allow us to make a scene.��

The only thing KUT found about the pool's integration was a single article in the Austin American-Statesman from Sept. 24, 1963 �� more than a year after Black swimmers were allowed. The article doesn’t acknowledge the protests. It acknowledges only the silence.

"How did Austin take this next step toward integration so quietly?" the article states. "Just like that. No one said anything."

Fast forward to today, there still isn’t a whole out there. But the city has started to acknowledge this piece of history.

The City Council voted last year to rename the bathhouse at Barton Springs Pool after Khabele, who died in 2021. It's scheduled to reopen later this year after undergoing renovations. The city also plans to install a historical marker to document the struggle to integrate the pool.

'I wanted to know that I could'

Scott, Ellinger and Martinez all said they haven't been to Barton Springs in decades.

Scott said she was thrown in the water in 1962 �� just days before the pool was integrated �� and hasn’t been back.

“It's not that I wanted to swim," she said. "I wanted to know that I could."

But Khabele's children and grandchildren have loved going to Barton Springs.

Lesedi Khabele Stevens, Khabele's eldest grandchild, said she went to the pool a lot growing up with her cousins and siblings. But the power of Khabele's protest wasn’t always at the forefront of her experience growing up.

"Last summer, I ended up going with some friends who were from out of town," Stevens said. "And they were like, 'Oh, didn’t your grandma integrate or help integrate Barton Springs?' And strangely enough, it was in that moment the gravity of it really hit for me.��

She’d been so used to just freely going to the pool and moving around Austin, not thinking too much about the sacrifices �� and the work �� her grandmother had done.

This story was originally told live at the Paramount Theatre on April 3, 2024.

If you’ve visited East Austin around Springdale and Airport Boulevard in the last several years, you’ve likely noticed apartment blocks, offices and cafes sit where truck depots, warehouses and vacant lots once sprawled.

At seven-years-old, Springdale General �� a studio, retail and business campus �� is the most established of the new arrivals. Across the street, a five-story apartment complex, The Goodwin, is still getting its finishing touches.

Next door, the wavy glass facade of the Springdale Green office building projects a smooth modernity. A sign in front advertises space for lease.

“You’d never think that it was just some big industrial lot for a long time,�� said Andi Acevedo, a neighbor who has watched the buildings go up with interest and some concern.

Many of these blocks used to encompass something called “tank farms�� �� the focus of one of the greatest environmental controversies in Austin’s history. There were toxic spills, lawsuits, protests �� all stuff Acevedo learned after she moved down the street several years ago.

This history has left her with a lot of questions. But the biggest one, which she put to KUT’s ATXplained project, is pretty simple: Is the land safe to be on?

It’s a question Austinites will likely be asking more often, as infill development takes place on city lots formerly occupied by polluting industries and businesses. Developers and public officials say existing rules ensure health and safety, but those rules allow some contamination to remain.

The battle over tank farms

Despite the name, tank farms are not farms at all. They are facilities where crude oil, gasoline and jet fuel are stored in big tanks before they go to gas stations, airports or wherever else petrochemicals are used.

The first tank farm came into this part of East Austin in the 1950s. You can find old aerial photos showing how that tank farm was soon joined by others, more and more being built right in the same area.

This was by design.

The land was near the old Mueller Airport, which needed fuel. There was pipeline access, and, crucially, the city had made the zoning inviting for this kind of industry.

"The siting of hazardous facilities was open to whoever wanted to locate in that area,�� said Sylvia Herrera, a longtime environmental activist who grew up near the tank farms. “So you have hazardous facilities next to schools. You have hazardous facilities next to residences.��

Those schools and residences were likely occupied by working-class, Black and brown communities, like the one Herrera grew up in.

This was also by design.

For decades, the same city zoning that had put heavy industry on the East Side also pushed those communities there.

"That was all impacting the communities�� health,�� Herrera said.

The policies are now recognized as a textbook example of environmental racism. But, she said, a lot of people back then didn't understand the pollution they were being exposed to.

That started to change in December 1991.

At the time, Herrera was a single mother of two, living a couple blocks away from the tank farms when she noticed something in the newspaper.

“There was a public notice, in small print of course, saying that Mobil [Oil] wanted to build another tank,�� she remembered.

Along with the notice was a list of the chemicals the tank would emit into the air: benzene, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, gasoline and diesel fumes.

It occurred to Herrera that the notice was just for that one particular tank.

“You start counting all the tanks that were already there,�� she said, “and you can imagine all the pollution that was coming out of there.��

Herrera was a member of a local environmental group called PODER. It decided to do a health survey of the neighborhood to see what kind of impact the tanks were having. Members went door to door asking residents if they were experiencing problems.

What they found was frightening.

People reported “migraine headaches, respiratory problems like asthma or coughing and having nosebleeds and so forth,�� Herrera recalled. “It was three-fourths of the community that was having the same symptoms!��

Neighbors started organizing to kick out some of the biggest companies in the world �� Chevron, Citgo, Mobil Oil, Exxon.

“We didn’t have any money,�� Herrera said. “Here we were fighting these oil giants. But people had the will.��

They held protests outside the tank farms, put pressure on state politicians and raised their voices at City Council meetings.

The deeper Herrera and others dug, the worse the oil companies looked. Toxic waste had seeped from the tanks into the earth and the groundwater under the community. The public had been kept in the dark about dangerous air emissions.

The AG���˰ټ��� County Attorney even opened criminal investigations.

For those living nearby, the tank farms had become an existential threat. For the oil companies, they had become the source of some very bad publicity.

One by one, the “oil giants�� agreed to shut down their tanks and move.

That's how a group of East Austin activists took on some of the world’s largest oil companies and won. It's the kind of victory that rarely happens and has since become an important part of Austin’s history, celebrated by city government, studied by academics and .

But for Herrara, the story is bittersweet.

For one thing, she said, much of the community that fought that battle has been displaced.

“All these areas have become gentrified,�� she said. “And so it’s sad to see, because it’s not progress for our community.��

For another thing, some of the contamination stayed in the ground �� even after the tank farms were dismantled.

That was allowed because of a deal the oil companies made with the state. Instead of fully cleaning up the land, the companies put deed restrictions on the properties that, regulators said, would protect the public from potential toxic exposure. The deed restrictions allowed only industrial or commercial use.

Simply put, no one could ever live there.

The church vs. the oil company

While they did not return the land to its original condition, the former tank farm owners did hope the earth might heal itself.

The process, sometimes called “self attenuation,�� assumes that rainwater might naturally flush toxins out of the soil.

“They just left these properties and let the rainwater do what the rainwater was going to do and let the earth do what the earth does," David Gottfried, a lawyer who works on real estate cases, told KUT in an interview back in 2016. "And they would monitor it.��

He said for years the oil companies tested the groundwater and treated the water that came up dirty.

Many of the lots sat empty. Then one day in January 2000, a group came along that wanted to buy. They were a religious congregation called La Voz de la Piedra Angular, The Voice of the Cornerstone.

“They purchased the property to establish their church,�� said Gottfried, who went on to represent them.

While many found the former tank farm land undesirable, he said, for this particular church, it was perfect. That may have been because the congregation had some unique beliefs about how much time there was left for them to build.

“They believed in the apocalypse,�� he said. “They needed a very large piece of property, because they believed that the apocalypse [was] coming."

So they took one of the huge warehouses that stood on the land and converted it into a place of worship, installing a stage and altar. They put in a kitchen and offices to run businesses out of the property.

“Then behind the building,�� Gottfried said, “they made a baptismal pool and they were performing baptisms.��

According to court documents, the church had converted an old fuel tank into the pool. Gottfried didn’t remember it that way. But, regardless, the baptisms caught the attention of the site's former owner: Exxon.

“Exxon was very unhappy about that,�� he said.

Even though the company no longer owned this property, it still had the power to enforce the land-use restrictions it had put in place. It also had reason to �� if someone got sick due to the pollution left on site, it could be sued.

The church had not been informed of any land-use rules when it moved in, Gottfried said. But that didn’t stop Exxon from suing. The oil company wanted the church gone.

“They were just minimizing their liability,�� Gottfried said. “My position on that is that if Exxon really wanted to minimize their liability �� they should have cleaned it up!��

Gottfried argued the church should be able, at least, to stay and pray. He pointed out that commercial activity was allowed under the deed, and that there was nothing specifically prohibiting religious services.

Gottfried remembered the judge agreeing that the church could hold a shareholder meeting there.

“I said, ‘And after that shareholder meeting can they all stand up and join hands and recite the Lord’s Prayer?’�� he recalled. “She said ‘no,�� and we lost the case.��

The church is still around, just not in that location. I called the pastor to get a comment for the story, but he didn’t want to talk.

Why?

“Está en el pasado,�� he said. It’s in the past.

But to this day, the case remains an example of how what’s allowed on polluted land can be as much a legal question as an environmental one.

Testing for toxins

After Acevedo learned about the toxic legacy of the tank farms, she tried to look into what clean-up work had been done ahead of all the new construction.

“There's not a lot of good information,�� she said. “It left me with a lot of questions.��

Questions like: “How does a place where people aren’t allowed to live become suitable for so many other uses?��

KUT requested an interview with Austin’s Planning Department, which approves new development, and Austin’s Watershed Protection department, which handles many environmental matters.

Both said no.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state agency that oversees Texas environmental policy, answered some questions on background but also denied an interview request.

Fortunately, Michael Whellan, an attorney who worked for the developer of the Springdale Green office project was available.

“First and foremost, this is a city process,�� he said. “The only control the state has was its involvement in cleaning up the site. That's through the TCEQ.��

After the church left in 2007, the TCEQ decided that the groundwater pollution at the site no longer posed a threat to neighboring lots. So, regulators told Exxon it could stop monitoring and treating the site.

“All water monitoring wells had to be capped and shut down,�� Whellan said.

Exxon appears to have gotten the deed restrictions changed about seven years later to make it easier to build on the land, still barring any residential use.

By 2020, a real estate boom had hit Austin. Parts of East Austin, once on the city’s outskirts, were now considered central. The former tank farm land was hot property.

The developers that bought Springdale Green took soil samples as part of the building process.Those samples showed the soil quality had not changed much since Exxon left in 2007.

But, after looking at the test results, the TCEQ said the soil would be OK to use as “fill�� beneath the new construction.

The city approved planning and building permits for the property. And work began on Springdale Green.

Whellan said that work required a lot more cleanup just to start construction. For example, a pipeline was found that one of the oil companies had neglected to declare with state regulators. It cost the developer over $250,000 to have it removed, he said.

For Whellan and many others, the lot’s redevelopment is an example to be followed, a success story of urban planning.

He said the developer created a stormwater drainage system to mitigate flood risk in the surrounding streets, removed invasive species and invested in an affordable housing fund. The Springdale Green project also got gold certification from SITES, a group that recognizes “sustainable and resilient landscapes and other outdoor spaces.��

All across Austin there are contaminated areas that used to house everything from old factories to gas stations that could be put to new use.

“We have to continue to identify where these sites are, make sure they get cleaned to at least commercial standards, and not remain vacant," Whellan said. 

But others, like Acevedo, remain uneasy.

“On this side [of the street] there's a ban on building residential units,�� she pointed out. “But then like directly across the street there's residential properties being built.��

“I hope that it doesn't cause any health problems for anyone.��

The fact is, in a system where polluting companies are allowed to leave without cleaning up completely, that anxiety will likely remain.

Yard garden?

There was another way to gauge the long-term impact of the tank farms in Acevedo’s neighborhood: test the soil for toxins.

KUT sent soil samples taken from her backyard to a private lab that specializes in testing for dangerous metals and petrochemicals. The results showed earth that was free of any major contamination.

While the tests provide only one small data point in one backyard, they appeared to assuage some of her concerns.

She said she may even start a vegetable garden.

This video premiered at the ATXplained Live show at Bass Concert Hall on April 29, 2025.

Austin's iconic moontowers were erected in the 1890s as part of the city's first street light system. Seventeen of the original 31 still stand today �� 165 feet above the ground.

If you look closely at one of the towers, you’ll see the telltale signs of a pulley system �� the original way workers scaled the towers daily to change out the lights.

Justin Clemens was curious about who changes the bulbs these days, so he reached out to KUT’s ATXplained project.

KUT spoke with UT Austin professor and researcher Bruce Hunt to find out more about the origins of the towers. We then went straight to the source of electricity in Austin �� Austin Energy �� to speak to the man in charge of the linemen who continue to scale the towers today.

Spoiler: They don’t use the pulley system anymore, and the quick-burning arc lights have been replaced with LED bulbs.

This story was originally told live at Bass Concert Hall on Oct. 23, 2024. Our next ATXplained Live show is April 29. Get tickets .

What comes to mind when you think of Sixth Street?

Maybe you think about that part of the street between Congress and I-35. Maybe you imagine lots and lots of bars. Maybe you remember that wild night you had there back in college �� or last week?

What may not immediately come to mind is history. But it turns out, Sixth Street is one of the most historic streets in Austin.

Tatum Troutt knew this and wrote to our ATXplained project to ask this question: “What happened to make dirty sixth be filled with so many of the same type of bars when there is actually a lot of history there?��

To answer her question, you have to go back to the city’s founding, because, though it may not have always been a street filled with bars, Sixth Street has always been a part of Austin.

Street of Dreams

In 1839, Edwin Waller created the original city plan, which was laid out as a grid.

Congress Avenue ran north-south to the Capitol. The other north-south roads all had river names like Colorado, Brazos and Red River. The east-west roads were all named after trees. Back then, Sixth Street was called Pecan Street.

Pecan Street had a few things going for it. First, it was far enough from the Colorado River to be safe when it flooded. This was way back before the city dammed the river and turned it into what we now know as Lady Bird Lake.

The street was also mostly level, which made travel easy. Because of this, it became a major road in and out of Austin. Businesses and buildings started popping up to serve the needs of travelers and the growing city.

So, from Austin's beginning, Sixth Street was a center of community and commerce. In fact, in the late 1800s, Pecan Street was known as the “Street of Dreams.��

Black Fifth Avenue

Sixth Street was also historically diverse.

"In the late 19th century �� the 1880s, 1890s, moving all the way up to the 20th century �� there are a lot of African Americans who are opening their businesses in this spot," Javier Wallace, the owner of , said about the 400 block of Sixth Street.

“It was like our Fifth Avenue, if you will, because of the amount and the concentrated amount of businesses that were owned and operated by Black people in them congregating and shopping and being in those spaces,�� he said, referring to Fifth Avenue in New York City, a high-end commercial district.

When Austin was founded, many Black and Mexican Austinites lived on Waller Creek, which runs through Sixth Street and was the far-east boundary of the city at the time. It makes sense then, that this is where they would found their businesses.

Signs, signs, everywhere the signs

In the late 1800s, as a result of the growth of the city, Austin changed the name of the east-west running streets from trees to numbers, and Pecan Street became Sixth Street.

Walking down Sixth Street today, you’ll find that many buildings have historical markers. Sixth Street became a historic district in the '70s, and many of these old buildings have been preserved.

In fact, Sixth Street between Brazos and Red River has the

If you read these markers, you’ll find that Sixth Street wasn’t just a home to Black-owned businesses; in the early 1900s Chinese, Mexican, Jewish and Lebanese businesses lined the street, too.

Ch-ch-changes

After World War II, Sixth Street fell on hard times.

It started to get a seedy reputation as a place where you could get drugs, porn and “massages.�� It got to the point where in 1980, the Old Pecan Street Association begged the City Council to stop allowing sex-related businesses there, lest it become a “sex ghetto.��

In the late '70s through the '90s, music venues started to take root there. The most famous of these might be Antone's, where a young Stevie Ray Vaughan got his start. But there was also Steamboat 1874, Black Cat, Babe's, The Cannibal Club and Flamingo Cantina.

It makes the world go round

So why is the Sixth Street that we know today filled with bars? Bob Woody has a theory.

Woody opened his first business on Sixth Street in 1983. He now owns or manages several establishments on the street, including the Blind Pig. He’s been called the "Mayor of Sixth Street."

When he moved in, there was a mix of businesses. He even owned a restaurant �� Old Pecan Street Cafe. He says people always ask him why the cafe went away, but it was just too expensive as a restaurant.

Over the years, property values have skyrocketed. Woody said he was offered $3.2 million for a building he bought for $80,000 in 1983.

Higher property values mean higher taxes for building owners. That means higher rent for tenants.

And because this is a historic district, for years you couldn’t build over 45 feet high, so the buildings had to be one or two stories. Tenants and owners have to try to make as much money as possible to cover rent and taxes in relatively small buildings.

So they cater to the clientele of Sixth Street. And who is that clientele? Students and tourists �� basically, people who want to party.

That means, at least from Bob Woody’s perspective, a bar will bring in the most money.

So why is Sixth Street mostly the same kind of bar when there’s so much history?

The answer is simple: money.

What lies ahead

But what about the future of Sixth Street? Turns out, a company is trying to change how Austinites view the street.

Stream Realty has bought 31 buildings on Sixth Street. It plans to renovate the buildings, but keep the historic vibes. And it wants to attract Austinites to the area not just at night, but also during the day.

“Downtown has over 15,000 residences and 10,000 apartment and condo units," Paul Bodenman, senior vice president at Stream, said. “It is truly a real urban downtown. �� Our first priority is to create an environment where local downtown residents want to go to on a regular or daily basis.��

In fact, the entire branding around this development leans into the idea of Sixth Street of days' past. If you go there now, you’ll see a lot of signs that say, "The New Sixth Street is Old Sixth Street."

Will the name Old Sixth catch on? Who knows.

Stream has this kind of Field of Dreams �� or rather, Street of Dreams �� vision about how Sixth Street will change. If they build it, we will come.

But a corporation can’t change the character of Sixth Street by itself.

Like Austin, the street has changed and evolved. It’s changed because of us. In each of its eras, the street has given the city what it wanted. What it needed.

At first, it helped the city grow. Then it gave people of color a place to dream, build and thrive. In the '70s and '80s, Sixth Street gave us the smut we craved. In the '90s it gave us music. And in the last couple of decades, people have turned to Sixth Street for good stories and bad hangovers.

What will future us want? I don’t know. But I do know that Sixth Street, our Street of Dreams, will give it to us.

This story was originally performed at KUT's ATXplained Live at Paramount Theatre on Oct. 11, 2023. !

As Jenna Guzman was biking around North Austin, she started to notice a familiar theme. Many businesses had "violet crown" in their names.

“There is the violet crown coffee shop, there's a church named after the violet crown, there's the shopping center,�� she said.

The list doesn't end there. There's also a Violet Crown Tattoo, the Violet Crown Trail, the Violet Crown Cinema and more. That led Guzman to ask ATXplained: "What is the significance and origin of the violet crown motif throughout Austin?"

Unlike other nicknames for Austin, there didn’t seem to be an obvious reason for the moniker. “The Capital City�� means the Texas capitol is in Austin. “Live Music Capital of the World�� was a tourism thing.

Some of the earliest references to a violet crown date back to the 1890s. Writers of the era, including O. Henry and William Cowper Brann, described Austin’s sky as a violet crown. They were referring to the pretty purple hue the sky sometimes turns at sunset.

A nickname-worthy sunset

KXAN’s former chief meteorologist David Yeomans said the sky appears purple for the same reason the sky looks blue during the day. It has to do with the amount of atmosphere the light has to pass through and what particles the light hits before it reaches our eyes.

“If you think of the Earth as a round sphere covered by a thin layer of atmosphere, sunlight coming in to hit the Earth's surface and to hit our atmosphere is actually white,�� Yeomans said.

The light from the sun goes through a filtering process as it passes the atmosphere. The light particles bounce off all kinds of microscopic stuff on its journey to our eyeballs.

As the sun dips behind the Earth at sunset, the light now has to pass through much more atmosphere due to the angle at which it approaches earth to get to our eyes. That bends the light further, and changes the interaction between light particles and the stuff in our atmosphere.

“When it does so it not only scatters the blue light, but it scatters some of the longer wavelengths of light. The reds, oranges, yellows that we consider a beautiful sunset,�� he said.

None of this is unique to Austin. Anywhere you are in the world, the color of the sky at sunset has to do with the amount of atmosphere light has to pass through and the stuff in the atmosphere.

But Austin residents were REALLY into this sunset hue.

The birth of a nickname

When Guzman was biking around and noticed violet crown moniker she was in Austin's Crestview neighborhood. Susan Burneson has lived in there since 1985. In the early 2000s, she started collecting stories from the neighborhood's history and how so many businesses there came to have "violet crown" in their names.She shared what she found on her website: .

“I actually made it all the way back to 1888, there is a reference in the Statesman,�� she said.

It was around that time that writers in Austin started throwing the violet crown nickname around in their stories set in the city. Some credited O. Henry with christening Austin as the City of the Violet Crown in his work TicToq the French Detective in 1894.

Starting in 1920's, the annual Violet Crown San-Sam Festival added another layer to the nickname's lore.

In 1925, there was a project in Austin to build the ideal home for the time, called the Violet Crown Home. The violet crown nickname would continue to be used in real estate marketing all throughout the early 20th century, but few had the impact Dr. Joe Koenig and Clarence McCullough had when they started selling land in what used to be north Austin in the '40s. They called their subdivision Violet Crown Heights.

Right alongside the subdivision, the pair built a shopping center in 1951. They called it the Violet Crown Shopping Center, which had a handful of violet crown themed businesses. The shopping center was also immortalized as “The Emporium�� in Richard Linklater's coming-of-age film Dazed and Confused.

Austin’s Violet Crown sister

Austin wasn't the first Violet Crown city in the world. In Greece, Athens beat Austin to the nickname by a couple thousand years. The earliest references to the Athens' Violet Crown date back to 400 B.C.

Something else Austin has in common with Athens that might explain the coincidence is the presence of Juniper trees. Both cities have these trees that produce everyone's favorite light scattering pollen particle. Yes, the very one that causes "cedar fever" despite not resulting from cedar trees.

“Most of the stuff in the atmosphere is about 2 ½ microns, maybe up to 10 microns in size. Cedar Pollen is many times bigger than that, it's 30 or 40 microns instead of 5 or 10,�� Yeomans said.

A micron is one thousandth of a millimeter. In other words, these pollen particles are much bigger than most of what’s in the atmosphere, so it scatters different wavelengths of light. Yeomans believes this might explain why Austin and Athens became the only two Violet Crown cities in the world.

“They too have this enemy allergen around, and that could explain why we have a similar atmospheric effect of the Violet Crown,�� he said.

So how could these purple sunsets not be the biggest deal in town in the 1880s? Back then, Austin had the capitol, a few universities �� and that's about it.

The city has since grown and adopted a few other nicknames along the way. But before the tech industry turned Austin into Silicon Hills, before the Austin Chamber of Commerce labeled the city the “Live Music Capital of the World,�� and before people were constantly reminded to “keep Austin weird,”Austin was the city with an awesome sunset.

This story was originally performed at KUT's ATXplained Live at Bass Concert Hall on Oct. 23, 2024. !

Krista Reitz was born in Austin, but she didn't stay here. After her parents divorced, she moved around a lot.

“I picked up and I moved and life was gone and the next phase happened,�� she said.

That made it hard to keep friends for very long. Now as an adult, Krista meets people who’ve been friends since they were kids and she wishes she had that.

“It’s something to be a little jealous of,�� she said.

She’s right. I don’t think we appreciate how rare and special it is to have someone in your life �� outside of your immediate family �� who’s just always been there. Someone who feels like home.

But it also got Krista wondering: “What are the oldest friendships in Austin and kind of the roots of them?��

Now, I don’t know if we can answer Krista’s question definitively. But we can try. And maybe learn something about what it takes to keep long-term friendships going.

KUT put out a call for people in Austin who’ve been friends for a long time. I was surprised by how many responses we got.

The beginning

We’ll start with the roots of long friendships.

Some met before they were even born.

Middle school meetings seem to be pretty common.

Sometimes, you don’t even remember when the friendship began.

And sometimes you remember exactly how you met.

Stacey and Jade met online in the late '90s. They were both living in Dallas and into the rave scene. Jade posted on this online message board, asking for a ride to a club. They’re complete strangers at this point, but Stacey said she’d give Jade a ride. They got to the club and Stacey gave Jade a task.

“She’s like listen: I’m not going to be friends with some punk, OK?�� Jade recalled. Stacey pointed to a guy across the room. “And she said ‘I want you to get up, go over to him, push him against the wall and make out with him. And if you don’t do it, I’m not going to be your friend.’��

So Jade got up, walked over and stuck her tongue down the guy’s throat.

“After a couple seconds, I just backed away and was like ‘OK, thanks.' And then I went back and was like ‘OK, we’re friends now,'" Jade said. "And we’ve been best friends ever since.��

This is like a foundational memory for their friendship, one of those stories they tell over and over again.

“I was literally just kidding,�� Stacey said. “I was like ‘I just want to see what she was gonna say.�� But she did it. And I was like ‘OK, this is it. This is the girl that’s going to be my best friend.’��

Years go by and like all old friends, they make a history together. All those huge changes that happen in adolescence and early adulthood.

Off to college, like Steph and Nancy.

Getting married, like Amelia.

Having kids like Sofie Leon and Maile Roberts-Loring.

Coming out to their friend, like Nancy.

The bad times.

And the good ones.

They might get separated along the way. In one way or another, a distance happened to almost all the friends I talked to, but if you’re lucky you find your way back.

There’s a kind of luck to keeping a friend over decades. Something like magic. But there are some things you can do to make your odds better.

Here are some lessons I took away from talking to some of the oldest friends I found.

Communicate

Debbie and Sharon had crossed paths a few times before. Their partners were good friends and they’d see each other occasionally, but they didn’t really connect.

Until one day, things just finally clicked, and they became best friends.

“Even now we’ll say or do things and it’s the same thought about a certain situation. So I think we’re just kind of cut from the same cloth,�� Sharon said.

Now they’ve been best friends for more than 40 years.

So how do they do it?

“It’s what’s in your heart. How you feel. How you are a constant. Because we’re a constant,�� Debbie said.

Even if they’re not talking on the phone every day. They’re texting. Sending prayers. A little “Good luck at your meeting�� message.

“Yeah, so I think that strategy goes back to being intentional and being deliberate in your thoughts, words and actions,�� Sharon said.

Forgive

Shari Eno is part of a huge group of old friends, most of them from the Round Rock High School
class of 1980. They stayed friends through college and picked up some new people along the way.

But the original group has been friends for 45 years.

When I met with like 10 of them �� plus more on Zoom �� they had frozen gin and tonics, including one for me. It was just constant laughter. So much laughing. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have difficulties with each other sometimes.

“Sometimes we get our feelings hurt �� not understanding,�� said one of the friends.

And like family, you sometimes have to just go with it �� even when it hurts.

“And it’s maybe like, you don’t get to understand," she adds. "But you just have to forgive and love and have grace anyway. Don’t always get the answer or the thing you want �� but you go on �� with the friendship.��

Tell them how you feel

Scott Roberts and Greg Bair met at O. Henry Middle School in 1965. A whole group of kids from back then are still friends.

“We all got along together, but it’s also Austin. You know Austin kept us all here,�� Scott said. “We’ve watched it grow, but at one time it was small, so we were always running into each other.��

They’ve been friends for almost 60 years now.

I asked them over and over why they’re still friends. Finally, they admitted it.

“The reason why we all stay together is because basically we all love each other," Scott said. "That’s it."

Do they tell each other that a lot?

“No. Hell no,�� Scott said.

“That’d be the worst thing we could do,�� Greg added. “We couldn’t back bite each other anymore.��

But they know how they feel.

Now this advice might seem kind of obvious. Maybe it is. But I think a lot of us forget this stuff. We take friends for granted. They need tending. Understanding. Forgiveness. And to be told just how much they mean to us.

Show up

There’s one last friend group I wanted to hear from �� three women who’ve been friends since they were very young.

“They had a picture of us at Anne’s second birthday party, which means we were all 2,�� said Nell Johnston-Martin, who’s 84 now.

(She happens to be the mother of Krista Reitz, the question asker.)

“Well, we lived in the same neighborhood and we went to Sunday school together,�� her friend Nancy Kelly-Anderson said

“I think when you’re 2 or 3 years old, you’re friends because your mothers are friends and [they] put you together,�� Anne Peterson-Donovan said.

So they became friends by circumstance. But they stayed friends by choice.

“We could tell each other stuff and know it wasn’t going any further. And you know, laugh together and sit out on the front curb and laugh and talk and solve all the problems of the world,�� Nell said.

They’ve been friends now for 82 years.

“It’s just grown and grown and grown, and we have lots of other friends that we’ve made,�� Nell said. “But old friends are good friends!��

Through having kids, divorces, illness, grandkids. Just showing up when they needed each other. The little things that might not seem like a big deal, but “it is a big deal because I know, my life I couldn’t have gotten through without my friends," said Nell.

Even when friends moved away for a time �� or stayed away �� they were always welcomed back.

Nell and Anne and Nancy might just have the oldest friendship in town. Krista might have had her answer all along.

This story was originally told live at Bass Concert Hall on Oct. 23, 2024. Our next ATXplained Live show is April 29. Get tickets .

Austin's connection to movies and TV shows goes far beyond the premieres that dominate the marquees of theaters during South by Southwest and other festivals. They're made in Austin, too, darn it!

Let’s run down some of our (and your) favorites shot locally, starting with The Big Green. The 1995 soccer-misfits movie led by the sexy sheriff Steve Guttenberg was shot in Austin with additional work done in Manor, Elgin and Pflugerville.

Then there’s the Coen brothers' film Blood Simple, filmed downtown and featuring one of the most gorgeous shots of Mount Bonnell you’ve ever seen.

TV shows are produced here, too, like the AMC series Fear the Walking Dead, starring Academy Award-nominated actor Colman Domingo.

Sarah Dixon wanted to know which of these reigns supreme as the most famous. Grab some popcorn, settle in and read on.

Hall of fame horror

The recognition for the in the Austin area goes to 1969’s Eggshells. You may not be familiar with the title but perhaps you know the name of the fella who directed it: Tobe Hooper.

Hooper also directed a movie filmed in the area just a few years later: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. More than 50 years later, the cult horror film’s legacy �� and its countless revisits and copycats �� live on. The City of Austin even designated Oct. 11, 2024, as “Texas Chain Saw Massacre Day.��

If you’re pining to step back into that torturous world, you're in luck. Out in Bastrop, you’ll find where some of the filming took place.

You can even recreate one of the film’s gorier scenes if you're feeling up for it �� but as far as BBQ recommendations, you’re on your own.

Linklater’s Austin

In the summer of 1990, a film by the name of Slacker introduced the city to the world and thrust Richard Linklater into cinema’s spotlight.

Shot on a small budget and filmed throughout Austin, the movie was part of a movement of independent American films that became the norm for the '90s.

Similarly to Hooper’s Eggshells, Linklater's debut film only set the scene for an even bigger success: Dazed and Confused. Muscle cars, bell bottoms, lighted doobies and a sweet introduction from Aerosmith is just minute one of 1993’s magnum opus.

Legend has it that Uncle Sam’s stoned eyes at Bedichek Middle School hung around long past the film’s shooting.

Dazed and Confused was set during America’s bicentennial in May 1976, but its iconic images of early 1990s' Austin capture one version of the city's ever-evolving "Golden Age."

Honorable mentions

The discussion around the most famous movie filmed in Austin may begin with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Dazed and Confused, but don’t think we’ve forgotten the rest.

Mike Judge's films Idiocracy and Office Space were both filmed across the city. A very important cast member even made an appearance during our live show in October.

Robert Rodriguez, too, has done his part to bring Austin to the big screen �� from the kick-butt teamwork that drives Spy Kids, to the gnashing and thrashing that follows in the wake of the title character Machete.

There’s also the rollerblading action of Whip It, the emotional intensity of Terrence Malik’s The Tree of Life and the family drama of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?

And that’s just the movies. In 2005, MTV’s The Real World brought Austin vibes to cable television homes across the world.

In fact, television filmed in Austin was a big reason Dixon asked KUT to investigate this story in the first place.

“I loved Friday Night Lights growing up and that’s filmed in Austin,�� she said.

Indeed it was. And let’s settle another thing while we’re here: If there’s a competition for sexiest fictional coach, surely leads the pack.

Dixon happened to have another connection with a TV show filmed in Austin: HBO’s Love & Death.

“I went to Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary," she said, "and part of it was filmed at the seminary while I was there."

But when did filming here begin?

As mentioned earlier, Eggshells was the first feature movie filmed in the Austin area. The first national TV show filmed here, Route 66, shot its second season in Austin and other cities across the state in 1961.

But filming �� professional and amateur �� has been happening for more than a century in the Austin area.

In fact, we’ve got proof of lots of these recordings thanks to the Texas Archive of the Moving Image, an organization focused on discovering, preserving and sharing videos from Texans past.

The archive’s founder, Caroline Frick, said the collection is made up of all kinds of recordings �� newsreels and commercials, yes, but lots of home videos, too.

They've got Christmas mornings spent with family members long gone, birthday parties that are but a distant memory for the toddler being celebrated, and one of the more common celebrations put to film.

“Lot of parade footage," Frick said. "I'm not going to lie. People love to parade."

Back when the archive was just getting its footing, Frick got a phone call from someone she’d worked with previously at Warner Brothers in Los Angeles. The caller said a woman had some early Texas films that belonged to her family. She didn’t have much money to preserve the films, but she thought they were worth saving.

“I quickly realized �� that indeed she was the granddaughter of the two pioneering Central Texas filmmakers, the out of San Antonio and Austin,�� Frick said.

The earliest films from Paul and Wesley Hope Tilley were dated from 1911. They're the oldest the archive has ever found with Austin origins, and they captured some pretty iconic locations still around today �� from the state Capitol to the Paramount Theatre.

Alright, alright, alright. So which of these is the most famous?

Picking the most famous movie to represent the city feels like qualifying which era of Austin was the best.

Goalposts are moved depending on which year you arrived here, or whether horror movies make you go to sleep with your bathroom lights on.

So, which one is the most famous?

We think it's Dazed and Confused.

What say you?

Halloween is the perfect time for a story about one of Austin’s many supposedly haunted places. Ghost stories are everywhere here �� from the Paramount Theatre to the Capitol. But the Driskill Hotel on Sixth Street might be the undisputed champion of supernatural destinations in Austin. KUT’s Ben Philpott enlisted the help of some paranormal experts to investigate.

This story premiered at KUT's ATXplained Live at the Bass Concert Hall on Oct. 23.

Reported by Ben Philpott. Produced by Deborah Cannon, Michael Minasi and Renee Dominguez.