Saving Austin’s History

Last year I had the pleasure of working with the staff from PBS's History Detectives for the upcoming History Detectives Special Investigations: Texas Servant Girl Murders.  The cast and crew came to Austin last summer; they did a number of…

Unidentified albumen print. One morning before dawn in the summer of 1883, a strange persistent cry echoed through a west Austin neighborhood and caught the attention of two women, Sophia Phillips and Sallie Mack, both of whom lived nearby. They…

  Austin native Henry B. Barnhart, was a successful attorney in 1885.  He was appointed Travis County Attorney in 1886.  An 1887 description of Barnhart’s career included the following passage: With uncompromising firmness, he has made successful war upon evil…

The sixth Annual Save Texas History Symposium will take a look at the history of Austin in a whole new light. In the Shadow of the Dome: Austin by Day & Night will examine diverse aspects of Austin’s history, including…

Austin, Texas is the seasonal home to a large population of Mexican free-tailed bats who spend their summers under the Congress Avenue bridge on the edge of downtown.  According to Wikipedia it is the largest urban colony in North America,…

Materials in Travis County Archives Collection. The mission of the Travis County Archives is to serve the government and the community of Travis County by documenting, preserving, and making available its records and history. The Travis County Archives documents the…