About this Blog

Trails ...

At the founding of Austin, there were a number of trails being utilized by the Indians that frequented the area. The trails were variously used for trade, acquisition of materials like flint, and migratory hunting and gathering as they followed the seasons, and raiding. In time Austin grew, as did outlying communities, often around the same resources -- such as springs -- that first attracted Indians. Old trails became roads, and what were once Indian camps along those trails became communities. And today the process of the new replacing the old continues. Today superhighways replace or by-pass the old roads. Communities that replaced old campsites have now themselves largely disappeared having been assimilated into the ever expanding Austin City Limits. 

 

and Tales ...

There’s a quote I love from the book Believing in Place, attributed to Comanche elder and storyteller Carney Saupitty: “Sacred places become sacred only after some transforming experience has occurred there”. In addition to trails, there are lots of tales of transformative experiences that made people, places, even things (like a meteorite!) special, sometimes sacred, to Austin and Travis County history.

As a member of the Travis County Historical Commission, this blog is my attempt to share what I've learned about some old trails and tales in Austin and Travis County. Some posts are full blown articles, some of which have been featured in Michael Barnes' column in the Austin American Statesman, or his books Indelible Austin, volume I and II. Other posts are quick post-it notes of facts I come across that I feel are worthy of a wider audience via search on the internet (as opposed to a dusty book on a shelf somewhere in some archive). And on occasion I just simply cannot help but write a post about some topic that catches my fascination outside of Travis County.