A Green History of Brentwood & Crestview

Posted on October 24, 2019 by

Updated October 18, 2023

Copyright 2019-2023 Susan Burneson. All rights reserved. Kindly talk with us before reproducing any website content.

In recognition of the 10th anniversary of Friends of Brentwood Park, founded by Brentwood and Crestview neighbors in Summer 2009. And, in honor and in memory of all who have helped create and keep our community green and thriving.

Somebody before us planted these trees,
and it’s up to us to do the same,
so there will be trees here for the next generation.
— Emily Wilson, Co-founder, Friends of Brentwood Park

A community is the heart and soul of a city.
— Hedrich Michaelsen, Co-founder, Friends of Brentwood Park

1914 • “On the north stretch rich farming lands that were once illimitable prairies. Westward is a chain of hills which make a beautiful purplish background for the intervening fields in various shades of green and gold.”
— Dr. John Preston, Superintendent, State Asylum (today’s Austin State Hospital, between Guadalupe and Lamar, south of West 45th St.), describing the land to the north of the hospital—where Brentwood and Crestview are today—and to the west, where the Violet Crown Hills still can be seen.

1927 • “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 (45th Street at the time). 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.”
— A 90-year-old neighbor who lived on Vallejo and was interviewed in 2007.

1936 • The Frank Pease family, including daughter Mickey, moved to a 14-acre farm between what is now Burnet Lane and Hancock Creek (Arroyo Seco), before there was a Brentwood or Crestview. Frank Pease sold some of the land so that Brentwood Elementary could be built there; it opened in 1951. The family sold the rest in the late 1970s. Where the house once stood (approximately 6503 Burnet Lane) remains the only undeveloped lot on the street, and trees that Mickey planted 80 years ago are still standing.

1947 • Violet Crown Heights, a subdivision of Brentwood, was promoted as having a “beautiful view of the Violet Crown Hills,” west of today’s Mopac, since there were few trees here at the time.

1950 • Kay Ramsey’s family moved to 1406 Ruth Avenue, one of the first houses in the area. Her father, Gladstone Swenson, planted a large vegetable garden; dahlias, Easter lilies, gladiolas, and bluebonnets; and plum, pear, peach, and pecan trees. Gladstone knew how to graft pecan trees. When he harvested them, he hung a sign outside to let neighbors know he had pecans for sale. Kay and her mother, Erna, left.

March 6, 1950 • Mae Waggoner and her family moved to their new home on the south side of Justin Lane, where they raised their children and Mae lived until she died in 2018.

1951 • The City of Austin acquired property that once was a cornfield behind the Waggoners’ home, and it became Brentwood Park and Brentwood Elementary School. Neighbors, including the Waggoners, formed the Brentwood Recreation Club to help develop and maintain the park and school grounds. The City of Austin had no money for trees but offered to dig holes for them. The Waggoners dug up sycamores along Onion Creek, and they and other neighbors planted them in the park and helped care for them for many years.

1952 • Early in the year, fifteen members of the Brentwood Recreation Club met to plan a May festival to help raise funds for playground equipment. On March 15, club members and the City of Austin planted 48 trees at Brentwood Park. The club also helped build the stage on the north side of Brentwood Elementary the next year. Longtime neighbors have said a bomb shelter was built beneath the stage, something common during the Cold War and threat of nuclear war in the 1950s and 1960s.

1953 • After they moved into their Crestview home, one of the first houses on their street, Wanda and Emory Muehlbrad wanted trees for their yard. They couldn’t afford to buy them, so they dug up young trees along Shoal Creek and planted them. Later, one tree had to be cut down when they added on to their home, to make room for four of their own children and hundreds of foster children.

1954 • The Brentwood Recreation Club and the school’s PTA held their annual planting of trees at the school and park. Everyone was invited to “Bring your garden tools, and let’s make our school and park one of the most beautiful in town.”

1955 • Billie Herron and her family moved to their Crestview home. She said there were no trees, and from her house you could see the hills to the west (background, right). She planted a magnolia tree in her front yard. For more than 60 years, she cared for the majestic tree.

Early 1960s • A mature oak tree was slated for removal at Crestview Shopping Center on Woodrow Avenue. The tree and the grassy mall where it stood between the two buildings were in the way of a new parking lot being planned there. Maude Yates, wife of Crestview developer Ray Yates, was an avid gardener and longtime member of the Violet Crown Garden Club. She had the large tree moved, and today it provides welcome shade for outdoor seating at Little Deli (below). Maude and Ray (and later Maude’s grandson Craig Cherico) lived for many years at 1313 Richcreek Road, with its sweeping live oak trees.

1985 • We moved to Crestview and met Helen and Neb Parson, our good neighbors for 10 years. When they lived behind us on Morrow, Neb always shared his abundance of tools and farm implements, and he planted a garden behind his garage, where it got the most sun. Helen knew the art of soul-satisfying home cooking, and she canned and preserved the harvest from Neb’s garden. Sometimes one of them would call and say, “Meet me at the fence,” and they’d share just-picked vegetables from the garden, a home-cooked meal, tools for a project, or news of the family or neighborhood. They lived at 1700 Morrow for more than 25 years. In 1995, they moved back to their home state of Arkansas, where Neb grew a garden the size of a football field, and Helen continued caring for her family and neighbors. For years after Helen and Neb moved away, the coral honeysuckle that everywhere else grew up and beyond the fence never filled in where they “met us at the fence” and showed us just how easy it is to be a good neighbor.

Summer 1990 • The Crestview Neighborhood Association began a longtime annual tradition of holding an ice cream social in the shade of the large oak tree (left) near the Little Deli, in Crestview Shopping Center.

February 20, 1993 • Brentwood and Crestview neighbors, through a project coordinated by the Brentwood Neighborhood Association and TreeFolks, planted 259 trees along Hancock Creek (Arroyo Seco), from Koenig Lane north to Justin Lane.

December 1994 • Brentwood neighbors began a luminaria project along the creek, in honor of the trees planted in 1992. Today, the project has expanded into Crestview and continues as an annual holiday event.

1996 • Madi Ward was nine months old when she and her parents, Angie and Bob Ward, moved to Brentwood. Madi remembers: “There was a tree in our front yard, just about my height. So, the tree and I have grown up together, and I’ve always spent a lot of time climbing it.”

Early 2003 • As we planned the first spring Violet Crown Festival, a project of the nonprofit Violet Crown Community Works, we couldn’t imagine having it anywhere except Brentwood Park, where there are plenty of trees, grassy areas, and space. Jean Graham, who created the mosaic Wall of Welcome, designed the violet crown topped with trees (right). The crown, built by Sandra Miron, was part of the entrance to the festival’s Community Tent, which featured neighborhood history and resources at the first five festivals. (The crown design also can be seen on the mosaic wall, worn by Domino the Pig.) Since 2003, the spring festival has been held at the park or at Brentwood Elementary, except in 2011, when it was held at the Travis County Farmers’ Market between Burnet Road and Burnet Lane and south of Justin Lane, now the Marq on Burnet.

May 6, 2006 • Thunderstorms overnight preceded the fourth spring Violet Crown Festival, held in Brentwood Park. As we scrambled to set everything up and fill in puddles and low, soggy spots in the grass, Mae Waggoner, who lived on Justin Lane north of the park, walked up and offered us bags of mulch and her wagon to carry them from her garage to the park. From the time she and her family moved to Justin Lane in 1950 until she died in 2018, Mae was a regular visitor to Brentwood Park, talking with neighbors and helping care for the trees.

March 26, 2008 • Jean Graham completed the mosaic Wall of Welcome (above), which features this inscription by her:

“Our neighborhood has roots and wings. Our feet are in the cotton [which once was grown here] and our heads are in the violet crown [a natural phenomenon in the western sky at sunset and visible from the neighborhood]. May the spirit live on.”

The wall, at 7100 Woodrow Avenue at Crestview Shopping Center, was dedicated in a community celebration on March 29, 2008. The film A Community Mosaic, by Rob and Susan Burneson, premiered at the event.

April 2008 • At a neighborhood gathering, Bill Williamson, who moved to Crestview in 1952, shared a story about a tree and community spirit. A neighbor’s tree fell and blocked the street, and the city was slow to respond. Bill and others didn’t hesitate to pitch in. “We take care of our own in this neighborhood,” he told city workers who arrived after the street was cleared. We featured Bill in our first Voices of the Violet Crown blog post on July 5, 2011.

May 2008 • Neighbors interested in gardening and other green projects set up an online group (crestview-gardeners@googlegroups.com) to exchange information. They also began holding plant swaps and local garden tours. The Google group was active for many years. Many members have been longtime volunteers with Friends of Brentwood Park and other green activities in our neighborhood.

November 1, 2008 • Dartmouth Avenue neighbors gathered to plant trees, shrubs, and vines around the once-bare Crestview Baptist Church property that faces their street. Cheryl Goveia coordinated the project and continues to care for all that was planted that day. (The photo below was taken in 2014.)

January 12, 2009 • As part of a City of Austin/TreeFolks project, neighbors planted 98 trees along the median on St. Joseph and Morrow in Crestview, coordinated by Kat Correa, and along Northcross Drive in Allandale.

Spring 2009 • Emily Wilson began coordinating Crestview’s application to become a City of Austin Green Neighborhood. In addition to other projects, Emily and Hedrich Michaelsen looked into adopting our local park, one of the activities the city suggested to fulfill the program’s requirements.

Summer 2009 • Friends of Brentwood Park, “dedicated both to keeping the park maintained and to continuing its development as a community resource,” was founded, after Emily and Hedrich signed an Adopt-A-Park agreement with Austin Parks and Recreation Department. The original Leadership Team included Emily Wilson, Hedrich Michaelsen, Karen Lorenzini, Denman Glober Netherland, Elaine Dill, and Kat Correa.

September 2009 • John and Judy Carlson moved to their newly built home on Princeton Avenue in Crestview in the mid-1950s. When we interviewed them in 2009 for Voices of the Violet Crown, we asked them about the thriving plants that were everywhere. John, who grew up on a farm outside Georgetown, Texas, told us: “That comes from a love of farming. You look at a plant and see what it needs. My dad was a good farmer and taught us everything. He was my hero, and I wanted to follow in his footsteps. We didn’t own the land, though, so there was no way I could return to it after I served in World War II. I was a good farmer, and if I had owned the land I could have made a good living. I knew all the aspects of farming, and I had new ideas about how to do it.”

December 5, 2009 • Friends of Brentwood Park had its first workday in the park. The group has held regular workdays ever since, as part of the Austin Park Foundation’s It’s My Park Day. The citywide volunteer event is now held twice a year, in March and November.

January 3, 2010 • Karen Lorenzini coordinated the planting of young trees along Arroyo Seco north of Justin Lane, in Crestview. She also recruited volunteers to help care for them as they grew.

February 8, 2010 • Crestview officially became a Green Neighborhood. The documentation for the designation included a history of Hancock Creek (Arroyo Seco), which runs through Crestview, Brentwood, Allandale, and Rosedale, where it joins Shoal Creek.

July 24, 2010 • Native plantings all around North Austin Fire Station #16, 7000 Reese Lane, were coordinated by Emily Wilson, based on a design by Cheryl Goveia and with the assistance of Elaine Dill and other neighbors. The project continued with regular workdays, including a mural painting on November 5, 2016.

October 3, 2010 • Sustainable Neighborhoods of North Central Austin, established in 2007 by Steven Zettner, held the first of its 11 tree plantings in the Brentwood, Crestview, and Allandale neighborhoods. By November 2014, volunteers had planted 170 trees and maintained them until they were established. Locations include Burnet Road, North Lamar, and Woodrow Avenue near McCallum High School.

November 6, 2010 • Friends of Brentwood Park, in conjunction with the Austin Parks Foundation and Austin Parks and Recreation Department, held a historic tree planting of 115 trees in the park (right), including 15 sponsored by neighbors and dedicated in honor or in memory of someone special to them.

February 23, 2011 • A film documenting the people and stories of the November 2010 event, We Planted 115 Trees, by Rob and Susan Burneson, premiered at the Brentwood Neighborhood Association annual meeting. Interview clips with FOBP founders and other neighbors who participated in the event are featured in the film. A copy of the film was donated to the Austin Public Library. Copies of oral history interviews with FOBP founding members Emily Wilson, Hedrich Michaelsen, Karen Lorenzini, Denman Glober Netherland, and Kat Correa were donated to the Austin History Center.

September 2011 • Friends of Brentwood Park completed a neighborhood survey and park master plan. As a result, Kat Correa coordinated planning and fundraising for a new park pavilion, dedicated May 5, 2012. Emily Wilson coordinated planning and fundraising for a walking trail, completed in June 2013, and a new drinking fountain, backstop fencing, and six benches, installed in 2014. (See also November 2016.)

February 9, 2012 • A purple martin house was first installed in the park. Since 2013, caretakers of the purple martin colony have included Emily Wilson, Elaine Dill, Denise Wolff, Diane Gorchs and family, and Denise Dailey, with Sharon Tan, Wendy Harte, Genevieve Baker, Dean Anderson, and Christine Linial.

May 15, 2012 • Former Austin urban forester Walter Passmore became the first city forester for Palo Alto, California. His invaluable role in the FOBP 2010 tree planting is described in a July 2012 article in the Palo Alto Weekly. In the article, FOBP co-founder Emily Wilson is quoted as saying, “It’s Austin’s loss and y’all’s gain. He was our best friend . . . He’s knowledgeable. He’s hard working. He loves trees. And, he likes to do projects.” After his home burned in the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fires in California, he applied and was hired to become State Urban Forester, based in Sacramento, beginning June 2021.

Summer 2012 • Landscaped traffic medians were installed in Crestview, as part of a neighborhood-wide traffic calming project by the City of Austin. Emily Wilson helped coordinate volunteers to maintain them, and today neighbors continue to care for them.

2013 • Karen Lorenzini planted trees along Woodrow Avenue near Crestview Shopping Center (left). As they grow, the trees will provide welcome shade at the sunny bus stop. Dominique Levesque coordinated a tree planting along West St. Johns on the south side of the center.

April 2014 • The City of Austin Community Character in a Box for Crestview includes photographs of local landmarks, including its mature canopy of trees. Richcreek Road (below) was named for the Frank Richcreek family that once owned the farm that became Crestview, beginning in 1947.

2014 • Lynnette Alley asked the City of Austin for permission to care for the median north of St. Johns at Arroyo Seco. The city decided to create the Adopt-a-Median Program, with Lynnette as its first participant. Her project was featured in an Austin American-Statesman article on September 4, 2016. When Lynnette was no longer able to care for the median, a new neighbor (as yet unidentified) began caring for it in 2021.

January 27, 2016 • Friends of Brentwood Park added to its website information about the park’s 15 memorial trees, three benches, and a purple martin house.

Summer 2016 • The Pour House Pub reopened as part of the Burnet Marketplace mixed-use development (now the Marq on Burnet), replacing what once was Travis County Farmers’ Market between Burnet Road and Burnet Lane and south of Justin. The developers preserved a large tree in the northwest corner of the property, which shades outdoor seating at the pub. (The Pour House closed in June 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2021, the JewBoy Sub Shop opened in the space.)

November 2016 • A Friends of Brentwood Park subcommittee, coordinated by Nancy Barnard, began meeting to plan Brentwood Park playground improvements, another result of the Friends of Brentwood Park neighborhood survey and park master plan. (See September 2011, above.) In 2018, the group received a $50,000 grant from the Austin Parks Foundation and continues to raise funds from donations and proceeds of the local Violet Crown Festival and Oktoberfest. In 2019, the subcommittee worked with the Austin Parks and Recreation Department to finalize the first phase of the project.

April 30, 2017 • Crestview neighbor Billie Herron’s majestic magnolia tree, planted in the mid-1950s, unexpectedly fell on a quiet Sunday morning, narrowly missing a house, car, and person working under it. Crestview neighbors quickly gathered to trim and clear limbs and brush, visit with Billie and give her a hug, clip and share remaining flowers (left), and be sure the tree was stabilized. The bulk of it rested on two massive elbow-like limbs until it could be cut down and cleared away later that day and the next.

November 15, 2018 • At the request of Preservation Austin, Voices of the Violet Crown researched the source of the name “Ryan” in Ryan Avenue and Ryan Planting Strip, both located in southeast Crestview. The planting strip, at less than a quarter of an acre, is one of Austin’s tiniest parks. The street and park likely were named for George L. Ryan, who worked in the A. B. Beddow real estate agency at least from 1947 to 1949. A. B. Beddow and Ray Yates began developing Crestview, from Justin Lane north to Anderson Lane, in 1947.

Spring 2019 • Neighbor James Gavin created a film about the history and importance of Brentwood and Crestview’s canopy of trees, which he describes as “the roots of the community.”

Spring 2020 • The first phase of Brentwood Park playground improvements (see November 2016, above) were installed, including a new rope climber, playscape, climbing blocks, and sidewalk. Due to the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the opening and dedication of the playground were delayed.

Fall 2020 • The Austin Parks Foundation selected Friends of Brentwood Park, established in 2009, as the Adopt-a-Park Team of the Year.

November 7-14, 2020: The Austin Parks Foundation’s It’s My Park Day, coordinated locally by Friends of Brentwood Park since 2010. Usually just one day twice a year, in November 2020 it was held for a week so that volunteers could stay safely distanced during the pandemic.

December 9, 2020 • Friends of Brentwood Park volunteers planted seeds for a new wildflower bed in the northwest corner of Brentwood Park.

October 24, 2021 • The fourth annual Violet Crown Oktoberfest, held at Brentwood Park, featured a ribbon cutting for the new playscape, a project spearheaded by a Friends of Brentwood Park subcommittee beginning in 2016. The park’s Oktoberfest is coordinated by Violet Crown Community Works. A second neighborhood Oktoberfest, benefitting G.I.F.T. (Grow. Inspire. Feed. Teach.) on Justin Lane, was held September 19 at Violet Crown Clubhouse in the Crestview Shopping Center.

March 5, 2022: Its My Park Day resumed in Brentwood and other Austin parks, after not being held in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic. As reported by Denman Glober on the Friends of Brentwood Park Facebook page, in just a few hours volunteers:

  • Distributed 25 cubic yards of mulch to trees on the Arroyo Seco side of the park
  • Weeded and mulched the sign bed, purple martin bed, and Shelton Memorial bed
  • Collected trash

Genuine Joe provided coffee and Eldorado Cafe provided tacos. Austin Parks Foundation provided resources and tools, and Austin Parks and Recreation provided support and logistical assistance.

May 2023 • A new magnolia tree was planted in the yard of an original Crestview neighbor. Six years before, her 60-year-old magnolia tree had fallen in the same spot (see April 30, 2017, above). Not long after the tree fell, the neighbor moved away but did not sell. The new planting coincided with the neighbor’s great-grandchild moving into the home and making it her own.

September 2023 • Seven new neighbors stepped forward to help lead Friends of Brentwood Park activities, including the It’s My Park Day on November 4. Thanks to longtime FOBP leader Kat Correa for coordinating the call for new volunteers!

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