In 1940, Al Kirby moved with his parents and brother to a farm on North Street, between West 49th and North Loop. Back then, North Street was outside the Austin city limits. Now it’s part of the Brentwood neighborhood.

That same year, Eddie Joseph opened the North Austin Drive-in on the southwest corner of Lamar and Justin, where Walgreen’s is today. Al talks about going there in the video clip below. (More about the neighborhood’s drive-ins here and here.)

In the clip below, Al talks about Doc Haile. From 1939 to about 1950, French Rudolph (Doc) Haile (1905-1990) operated a small airport in the vicinity of Koenig Lane and Avenue F, east of Lamar. It included what later became Howard Nursery (which closed in 2006) and the Skyview neighborhood to the north. Lindon Leslie (Dude) McCandless developed the Skyview neighborhood in the late 1940s. A metal building that was a hangar for the airport and served as storage for Howard Nursery remained there until about 2014, when it was demolished to make way for new construction. Doc Haile’s airport was about halfway between the University Airport, which closed about 1949, and the Robert Mueller Municipal Airport, which closed in 1999.

Hangars from the University Airport still exist in the area. One was moved to 604 Williams Street in the Highland neighborhood. From 2020 to 2023, it was home to Garden Seventeen. Lamar Takeoff LLC, the company that owns 604 Williams, received a Preservation Austin Stewardship Award in 2022 for its innovative transformation of the building. Other former hangars house Red Velvet, at 7121 North Lamar, and Alamo Glass, at 7123 North Lamar, likely at their original locations as part of University Airport.

We interviewed Al on March 29, 2009. He died in 2012. A DVD of his full videotaped interview is at the Austin History Center.