The McGill Ford: Indian Crossing on the Colorado

(Update to this story; I've written another blog describing the journey of one young Ed Milam from Austin to Hudson Bend; the journey begins at McGill Ford. See Road to Hudson Bend, 1896)

There is a Texas historic marker at the old Charles Johnson home west of where MOPAC crosses the Colorado. The marker reads:

Erected 1858 by Chas. Johnson, near the WM. McGill Ford on the Colorado River. Built by fellow Swedes, of native stone from his own quarry and lime kiln.

Walls are 18 inches thick. A stone-paved breezeway joined the two wings of the building.

A long porch with six ionic columns was added, and the open breezeway closed following the purchase of the property in 1924 as permanent home of the Travis Post 76, American Legion.

Link to the Johnson Home historical marker

It is that the home was built near the McGill ford of the Colorado that is of particular interest from the perspective of old trails in Austin: a river ford marks the location where a trail crosses the river. The building is now home to the American Legion Travis Post 76 (404 Atlanta St, Austin, TX, near where MOPAC crossing the Colorado) and a history of the building included on their website includes this excerpt from The Austin Statesman, Sunday October 19,1924:

"When Charles Johnson built his home on the banks of the Colorado River in 1858, he was far out of the city of Austin. The city limits then extended only to Shoal Creek .. So wild was the country at that time it was considered risky to live so far out of town on account of the Indians in the hills across the river … Indians were frequently seen across the river and sometimes came across the ford just below the house … ”

So the history marker says the ford was near the location of where Charles Johnson built his home, but "near" is a relative measure of distance. Can we be more specific as to the location?

Location of the Ford

I have yet to find an old Austin map with the McGill ford labeled as such. But an article in a local newspaper -- the Austin Weekly Statesman, Ed. 1 Thursday, May 7, 1896 -- provides a clue. The paper that day reported "A Fatal Shooting Fracas, Dempsey Brown is Now Dead and Jim Nixon is Badly Wounded, Pistols and Guns Brought in Play .. Yesterday morning there was a tragedy enacted at McGill's ford, to the northwest of the city and opposite McDonald's brickyard..".

It was a shootout at McGill ford, AKA McGill's ford. And the ford was opposite McDonald's brickyard. Mystery solved. Well, maybe not quite yet. Where was McDonald's brickyard?!

 

 

 

John McDonald's Brickyard

Again, old newspapers come to our aid. An advertisement for John McDonald's Brickyard appeared in The Austin Statesman in August 1889 advertising their location: "Brick yard located one and a half miles west of Postoffice, at the west end of Pecan street, Austin. Good road. No crossing of the river."

Pecan street is of course the old name for what is now 6th street. An Austin city directory for that time indicates the post office was located on the northeast corner of Pecan and Colorado streets; the building is still there [1]

An article on brick making in early Austin corroborates this location saying the "McDonald Brickyard [was] located west of the present underpass of Sixth Street [2]. While the article doesn't say what underpass, this most certainly refers to the only underpass on 6th, that where 6th street passes under the MOPAC railway, about 1.5 miles west of the old post office.

So McDonald's Brickyard was on the north shore of the river, with the south side of the McGill ford on the opposite bank, probably less than 3 tenths of a mile distant from the Charles Johnson home, and the north side even closer.

Interactive map below; star marks general local of McGill ford.


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[1] More about the old post office building is available on this historic marker
[2] Brickmaking (sic) in Early Austin, by Phocion Park, The Junior Historian, Vol. XXIII, No. 5, March 1963. Available on Portal to Texas History.