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Our neighborhood history series continues . . .
(What’s a WABAC Machine? Find out here.)

1881 • The Austin and Northwestern narrow gauge railroad—later Southern Pacific—was built between Austin and Burnet, through today’s Crestview and a stop called Abercrombie.

EARLY 1890s • First known appearance in print of “City of the Violet Crown” to describe Austin.

1893 • Esperanza School, an early county school first built in 1866, moved to Upper Georgetown Road (today’s Burnet Road), north of Koenig Lane.

1914 • Dr. John Preston, Superintendent, State Asylum (today’s Austin State Hospital), described the land north of the hospital, where Brentwood and Crestview are today, and to the west, where the Violet Crown Hills still can be seen:

On the north . . . stretch rich farming lands that were once illimitable prairies. Westward . . . is a chain of hills which make a purplish background for the intervening fields in various shades of green and gold.

1921 • Austin’s Violet Crown San-Sam festival, a city-wide event featuring parades, fireworks, water sports, a street dance, athletic meets, and queen’s coronation, was held in Austin April 20-22. (You can read an article about the festival at the Portal to Texas History, and the Austin History Center has a great poster of the event in its collections.)

1927 • A 90-year-old neighbor on Vallejo, interviewed in 2007, shared a memory from a much earlier time:

The house where I’ve lived since 1967 is on land where I picked cotton when I was 10 years old, in 1927. Daddy would round up a truckload of kids and go out way past the city limits (then 45th Street). We’d pick cotton on land owned by two old fellers whose names I don’t remember, but I recognized the area when we moved there. Back then, I could pick 150-200 pounds a day.

1933 • Kenneth Threadgill opened a gas station and beer joint on today’s North Lamar. Thirty years later, a young folk singer named Janis Joplin got her start there.

1936 • Evelyn and Frank Pease (right) and their children moved to a farm on today’s Burnet Lane. Except for a few months, their daughter Mickey has lived in this area ever since.

1939 • The Brentwood neighborhood had been developed all the way up to Koenig Lane. • A. B. Beddow and Ray Yates held their first meeting of the Austin Development Corporation. They later developed Crestview. (See Frank Owen Richcreek).

1940 • Eddie Joseph opened Joseph’s Drive-in, later called North Austin Drive-in, the first in Austin and one of four that once were in our area. (More about local drive-ins here.)

1942 • November: Frank Richcreek died. Five years later, his dairy farm began to be developed as Crestview Addition No. 1 by A. B. Beddow and Ray Yates.

“WABAC Machine, Part 4,” next time on Voices of the Violet Crown.