Destination Guides - Southpoint.com Blog

Feature Books on Austin, Texas

This gem of a book highlights the fascinating history of Austin, Texas through comparative photos, showing what neighborhoods, landmarks, businesses looked like 100 plus years ago to today. The photographs are each taken from the perspective and angle to compare to an earlier photo, which may be 100+ years ago.

Some of the changes are dramatic with the building boom around the city, while others seemed to have changed little at all. Many locations along Congress Avenue and downtown are highlighted, including the first opera house, the oldest continually operating business in Texas (Scholz Garden), the Avenue Be grocery, the Texas Military Institute, restaurants, and a few early motels still in existence. Being in central Texas, the book has opened our eyes to the rich history around the city.
Through the 250 pages, the author details many locations in East Austin, South Austin, West Austin, Hyde Park, Shoal Creek, and UT. A pediatric neurologist by trade, this is Jeffrey Kerr's first book, and has been exceptionally researched and documented.

 
Keep Austin Weird. If you're from or have ever been there, you know...
For a dose of what makes Austin so odd (some say unique), this is the book.
In a twist of strangeness, some kook recently torched the Governor's Mansion in Austin which was being renovated.

Designed by the famed builder Abner Cook, who also built many buildings around Austin. We hope that they are caught soon. Work is underway to get it back to the showplace that it was being renovated to be again.