The Allandale Reporter

The 1981 Memorial Day Flood - Allandale

Here a link to the stories told by folks who experienced the 1981 Memorial Day flood in Allandale. This is from an article we put together for the newsletter and the web site back in April 2009. Click here to read the story. You can read more stories from around the city at the City's web site: www.austinfloods.org, which includes photos. 

Remembering the 1981 Memorial Day Flood

Hello,
I wanted to follow up and let you know that the website we launched on March 13, www.austinfloods.org, has received more than 50 story submissions on the Memorial Day Flood, we have more than 80 flood photos posted and six compelling videos to share. 

We want to thank you for all your help. Your stories, photos and videos helped us launch this page and we will continue to collect stories over the next month or so.
If you haven’t visited the site yet, please do and share it with friends. Also, stay tuned as we make plans to commemorate the 30th Anniversary in late May.

Warmly,
Wendy Morgan 

wendy l. morgan | public information specialist sr. | 512.974.2090city of austin | watershed protection department

Did you experience the 1981 Memorial Day Storm first hand?

Hello,

My name is Wendy Morgan and I work for the City of Austin’s Watershed Protection Department.  We are planning a commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of the devastating Memorial Day Flood and are looking for people who experienced the storm first hand.  In the coming months, we are planning to launch a website that gives citizens the opportunity to share their personal stories with photos, text or video, but we want to collect some stories now, so the website has some items when launched.

Historic Texas Cemetery Marker Dedication

There was quite a turnout at Saturday's historic Texas cemetery dedication ceremony at the Austin Memorial Park on Hancock, probably 100 people in all. The event was the culmination of much work devoted to getting the historic designation. The cemetery dates back to 1927. Sharon Blythe, leader of the Rescue Austin Memorial Park (RAMP), was master of ceremonies. Mayor Lee Leffingwell and Randi Shade were two of the speakers at the event. There was a bagpipe and men dressed in uniform from previous wars and branches of service, a reminder of the various generations that are interred at the cemetery.

Other speakers at the event included Barry Hutchison, Chairman, Travis County Historical Commission, Brigadier General Joyce Stevens with the Texas Army National Guard, Johanne Ibsen-Wolford, VP, Zach Theater (Zachary Scott is interred there), and Karen Thompson, President/Founder-Save Texas Cemeteries. Allandale was well represented in the crowd. ANA President, Donna Beth McCormick was there as was ANA EC member, Peggy Maceo and former ANA EC member Joe Reynolds and his wife Carolyne. I suspect there are number of Allandale residents with family members buried there.

The historic plaque unveiled at the ceremony (click on image of plaque above) provides a history of the park including some of the well-known locals who are interred there. Although windy, it was a pleasant morning for the ceremony.  One could not help but come away from Saturday's dedication feeling the significance of the 96 acre cemetery to Austin.

Austin Memorial Park Cemetery Historic Dedication Ceremony - This Saturday

Austin Memorial Park dedication ceremony Saturday April 24th. 10:30 pm at the cemetery on Hancock. Speakers including General Joyce Stevens from Camp Mabry, Mayor Leffingwell, Council Member Randi Shade, Johanne Ibsen-Wolford, Zach Theater VP, and the State Historian for the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Karen Thompson.

Everyone is invited. This cemetery has quite a history and it's here in our neighborhood.

Donna Beth

Click here to see Order of Events.

Austin Memorial Park Cemetery Historic Dedication Ceremony

I know that this is month away and you will need to be reminded again - but see the note on the Cemetery and it's historical value. There will be more information in the newsletter. It does have quite a history!

"Austin Memorial Park Cemetery is now officially a historical treasure, and it will carry forward the history of this community through a Historic Texas Cemetery dedication ceremony scheduled on APRIL 24, 2010 at 10:30 a.m. at the Cemetery, located at 2800 Hancock Dr., Austin, Texas. This ceremony will bring attention to the important character of a historic place in the heart of Austin. This dedication ceremony will be attended by, among others, Mayor Lee Leffingwell, council Member Randi Shade, members of the Travis County Historical Commission, and officials from the University of Texas."

Donna Beth - ANA President

Plesiosaur Tile reminder of important fossil find in Shoal Creek

Here is photo of the plesiosaur tile placed in the new Great Northern detention pond spillway. It is a reminder of the larger plesiosaur fossil that was found in Shoal Creek in 1990 on the west side of Shoal Creek just north of Greenlawn by resident and amateur paleontologist, Robert McDonald. He discovered it while fossil hunting along Shoal Creek with his 5-year old son.

According to the newspaper write-up of the find, the plesiosaur was from a group of reptiles that had adapted to life in the shallow seaways that covered much of Texas 90 million years ago. The reptiles were mostly carnivorous and fed primarily on fish. They weighed about a ton and measured from 14 to 18 feet in length. The actual fossil was excavated by faculty and students from ACC and the University of Texas and is now on display in the Texas Memorial Museum. Click on the image to the right of the Austin American-Statesman article to get the details of the discovery.

How Allandale Pioneered Central Air Conditioning

Nathan Dooley 

It is hard to believe that anyone ever lived in central Texas without air conditioning. Imagine trying to survive last summer’s oppressive heat without cool air in the home! While I’ve welcomed the opportunity to open windows now that the weather has cooled, I would never have dreamed of turning off the central air conditioning during the last few months’ string of hundred-degree days. However, central AC is a relatively recent amenity, and our neighborhood played an important part in its development. 

The 1981 Memorial Day Flood

Some people in Allandale to this day get very anxious when there is a hard rain. I am referring to those hit by the Memorial Day Flood that roared down on the city and brought death and destruction along Shoal Creek on a Sunday night, May 24, 1981. It turned stretches of Shoal Creek and Lamar into a river. On Bullard Drive, where homes back up to Shoal Creek, the water flowed down the street and into the homes  from all sides. The image above is the front page of the Austin American-Statesman from the Tuesday morning edition. The headline from the newspaper the morning after the flood, Monday morning, reported 9 deaths. By Wednesday the death toll had risen to 15. 

What follows are the stories from residents in Allandale who shared their experiences of the 1981 flood with the "Allandale Neighbor." The Flood changed the neighborhood. It is a night no one living near Shoal Creek at the time will forget. 

Allandale Village – Our Neighborhood Shopping Center

Tom Linehan

My memory of the stores that have come and gone in Allandale Village over the last 25 years is sparse. H-E-B has always been there. I remember a number of restaurants in the spot where Hangtown Grill now is, including Romeo’s, an Asian buffet restaurant, and, more recently, Dry Dock. These, of course, all came after the longstanding Pancho’s Mexican Buffet, which closed in the early 1980s. I miss the Radio Shack that moved out about a year or so ago. I remember getting haircuts at a barbershop on the side of the Allandale Village that faces Northland Drive. I was told the barbershop was originally on the front side of the shopping center facing Burnet Rd., but I don’t remember the name of the place. (It pre-dated Supercuts.)