FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 12, 2005
Contact:
, Austin History Center, Austin Public Library, 810 Guadalupe (512) 974-7388
Original Zilker Park Deeds Gifted to Austin History Center by Mayor Wynn
On January 12, 2005 Mayor Will Wynn donated to the Austin History Center the original title abstract when the final piece of Zilker Park was given to the City of Austin in 1955. The deeds are in chronological order starting with the deed dated January 12, 1826 when the agent for the Empresario Benjamin R. Milam deeded one league of land to Henry P. Hill.
Zilker Park is named after Colonel Andrew Jackson Zilker, a capitalist and public benefactor who lived from 1858 to 1934. Colonel Zilker gave the Austin School Board a tract of land in 1917 known as Barton Springs on condition that the city purchase the land from the schools for $100,000 and convert the tract into a park. This money created an endowment fund for industrial education and home economics. In 1931 he endowed the schools again with another tract of land of some 300 acres adjoining Barton Springs on condition that the city pay the schools $200,000 over a period of twenty years. (Source: Andrew Jackson Zilker Biography File at the Austin History Center)
As the local history collection of the Austin Public Library, the Austin History Center houses over 750 manuscript collections that contain the papers and records of City and County departments, local families, civic organizations, businesses, and institutions. These valuable primary research materials are stored using archival supplies suitable for the preservation of materials and kept in the closely monitored climate-controlled environment maintained at the Austin History Center. The materials are later indexed for use by researchers who come to the Center to use the primary and secondary resources.
Open hours for the Austin History Center are Monday through Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and on Saturday from 10 to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 12 noon to 6 p.m.
About Colonel Andrew Jackson Zilker
“Save a little of what you have, and always remember that success is based on hard work.”—Slogan attributed to A. J. Zilker.
Quote concerning his donations Andrew Jackson Zilker during the presentation of Most Worthy Citizen of Austin Award in 1931:
“We felt it would be a wrongful thing for this beauty spot to be owned by any individual and that it ought to belong to all the people of Austin.”
Zilker came to Austin as a young man in 1876 with fifty cents in his pocket. He began earning money in Austin by washing dishes in local restaurants. Soon he landed work in an ice factory on the river for $1.25 a day, and within three months he was leasing the plant himself. His ice business spread throughout Texas, and he became one of Austin’s earliest millionaires.
We know his name best for the park that is the heart of Austin’s recreational spaces. Zilker gave the property for that park to the city with the condition that an endowment be created for "manual training" in the public schools. The resulting endowment helped to create shop and home economics classes within the Austin schools.
