Austin, Texas in Socio-Historical Context
A crack rang out like a gunshot. The sound, it would soon be known, was caused by a sharp and sudden split down the middle of the massive red granite wall of the Austin dam. Built to hold back the flood waters of the lower Colorado River, the dam was tested by the torrent of rain that descended on the Austin area on April 6, 1900. And the dam failed. Though it stood an impressive sixty feet high, the dam could no longer hold back the force of water rushing down the river. As the dam gave way on the morning of April 7, chunks of granite and limestone rubble were carried as far as sixty feet downstream. Lives and property were lost, as has been the case in the more than eighty recorded major floods in the lower Colorado basin since 1800. But this flood was devastating for more than this reason. With those broken pieces went the promise of Austin as the industrial center of the south, a vision towards which Austin residents had invested 1.4 million dollars in bonds just nine years earlier. In today’s dollars that amount would be roughly 35 million.
This chapter begins with a glimpse into the 1900 flood because had it not been for the destruction of the Austin dam, the course of Austin’s economy would likely have taken a different trajectory. The failure of this monumental project is one of the main events in Austin history that shaped the city into what it is today, by disallowing it to develop into an early industrial center of the South. This event explains in part why Austin’s economy was relatively undeveloped for many decades. The economic dormancy that followed the destruction of the dam meant that entrepreneurs could later capitalize on developments in the technology industry. So, in a sense, the breaking of the Austin dam flooded the way for Austin’s later success as the high-tech center dubbed “Silicon Hills.”
The story of the failed dam also provides insight into the persistence of inequality in Austin. While quality of life has been a steady concern for urban entrepreneurs, only some Austin citizens have been able to experience high living standards. The debt that the city accrued during the building of the dam meant that very few resources were left to go towards other urban necessities, such as paved roads, adequate utilities, and public housing. This would not have been devastating had the dam actually produced the power and industry it promised, because Austin residents would have gotten a return on their investment. Given its failure, they were left with nothing but debt. The city therefore selectively used what funds were still available to make the city a residential draw for upper and middle class whites. Black, Mexican-American and poor white residents were left with dirt roads, backyard outhouses, and forced segregation.
The persistence of inequality despite the vast accumulation of wealth in the more recent story of Austin success has seeds in these early days. The purpose of this chapter is to explore some of those lesser known stories as a way of highlighting their continuing significance. The Austin dam and other lost opportunities will be put into the context of a broader understanding of American urbanism and industrial growth. The existence of inequality and oppression will be emphasized against the backdrop of the hip, creative, tolerant Austin of popular lore that is characterized in the phrase “Keep Austin Weird.” First coined by Red Wassenich while pledging money to an Austin public radio station in 2000, the phrase has since been adopted by many as a way of promoting local business and tourism. The social and historical context that follows implicitly questions what this phrase means and also provides the foundation from which the individual narratives in this book emerge.