Land Changes: Resident Impacts

Could somebody, let me start with you, the connect. . .What's the connection of the family to this area?

Well, my father bought the first, I guess, 40 acres of it from Dorothy Duval back in about 1941. . .

I'm not sure the exact date, but I think it was 1941. Because I have memories of having been there that year. Whether they were preparing to buy it or they had bought it. And… so the part, I guess, north of Spicewood Springs Road, they bought from Dorothy Duval.

And then Mr. Harvey Simon lived on the other side of the creek. That is, the line went down the middle of the creek.

Mhm.

And my father didn't want to have just half the creek. He wanted all of it, or none at all! So, he talked Harvey Simon into selling him the bluff so he'd have the whole creek, and that meant that his cattle would need some water. So then he traded part of that the North end, three acres, I think it was, of the North end up there by the second bridge. . .

So he'd have the full [Bull] Creek all the way so his cows wouldn't have to stop in the middle and come.

So his cattle would have access to the creek. They would still have access to water. So then, plus some money, of course, because that was considerably more property.

Well, I didn't understand why he… why he needed to trade that, because he had a creek coming down here.

He wanted the spring. That part that he asked for had the biggest spring in it, and that's what he wanted.

Mr. Simon? Yes.

There was a waterfall up there. . .

My understanding. At the time, I didn't understand why he wanted it, because he already had water coming down here, and he also had a creek over here.

This is about. . . This property is basically how far up the road from 360?

Originally it was from. . .Spicewood Springs Road crossing. . .

This is a half mile…

And here's 360 that goes over that property. The end of it.

Actually, this still belongs to the property. There was an easement given for the road.

Yeah, the property actually goes past 360 over here. That's not drawn right.

How did… How did he use that property? How did y'all use it in the beginning to run cattle?

No…

Just recreation…

Recreation.

[Well, there was a] garden.

There was a garden down here.

Well, that's true.

Where a house had been. My mother had a big garden, and there was a well…

What we call a “victory garden” at the time.

There still is a well…

This piece they were… She was talking about that we traded back to Harv Simon is where the Spicewood Country School is now. It's the piece that they own now.

Yeah.

And my grandmother told me that when they bought this upper part from Harv Simon, that they gave her a call at home one morning after my grandfather had gone to work and told her that they needed her. . . Needed them to go mark off what they wanted, and it had to be done that day because the surveyors were coming. So, she took a roll of twine and, and went tramping through the thicket and tied it someplace in the creek, and then just went walking off up in there, till she came back to the creek again and and tied it again.

And she said she didn't have a very good idea, really, of where she was going, but kind of went off in the right general direction. And that's, that's why this property line is so crooked.

Yeah. You know the real history, the real history of a lot of property lines goes back to things like that. You know, you always look and say, why did this, why is it like that?

In East Texas, a lot of the property lines are not exact too.

Well, this property went to the middle of the road, also. The middle of the road to the middle of the creek.

And still does, theoretically. Actually I haven’t…

The city has…

I haven't found. . . Found any record where any easement was ever claimed by the city for Spicewood Springs Road. So I believe we still own that, or I'm sorry we don't. When we sold it, we still owned it.

I think you were conveying half, half of the road.

Yeah, that's correct.

And the city may have quick claimed that… to the county by now.

Her parents used to invite friends and have big picnics down there and barbecues and hot dogs and swimming, and that was quite an important part of their life was to have their friends enjoy that property.

Well I think that's an important part of the history of… That we're trying to record of this area because it was a. . . It was a good ways out of town at transport speed in 1941. It was like, at least like going to Lake Travis, right? I mean...

We lived a block east of the stadium, so it was 10 miles out there.

When the United States joined World War Two, the. . .In order to conserve fuel, the maximum highway speed limit 35 miles per hour, if you're. . . You may remember.

I remember riding the bus. . .

I was here in World War Two, but I wasn't driving yet. (Giggling.)

I rode a bus to Dallas during that time, and they couldn't go over 35 miles an hour… So, they'd stop at every little town that goes to 55 or 60, then stop at every little town so that they'd average 35 miles an hour.

Well, tell me, let's… Let's tell the tape about . . . What was a “victory garden”? Because one of the things that happened on this property was a victory garden. And I know what a… Was… And I know what a victory garden was, in a way, but in a way I don't. Did. . .Did the government have any preferences about what went into a victory garden? Or was it just…

I don't think so.

They just wanted you to grow some of your own vegetables. . .

Grow your own foods…

grow your own so they wouldn't have to import so much.

Yeah.

And it was, it was strongly encouraged…

They were much…

Patriotic home front efforts.

Well, what? What about these picnics? And can you give me some more details about when would y'all go out? Would you go out on the Fourth of July? Would you go out on weekends in the summer? What was happening?

My grandparents spent every Sunday afternoon there. And for several years, my grandfather was out there every Saturday, digging post holes and fencing the place. Fenced it all with cedar posts. . .

Oh yeah. . .

. . . And barbed wire. Not the easiest place to dig post holes.

One thing that Rowena, his mother, would would talk about was that she could go swimming every Christmas in the creek, that she would go swimming every Christmas.

It was a warm climate.

I thought it was Thanksgiving. [inaudible]

Yeah, they're talking about digging post holes. . . and how hard it was. My dad would dig those, and he would go out there and spend all day long, maybe he'd dig about three or four holes. He tried blasting once, but it made such a big hole and it was only about a foot deep, he gave that up. It was about three more feet wide and only about a foot and a half deep. He was looking for about two or three feet deep and maybe 10 inches wide.

And he has a wire stretcher where he would put the wire up himself and stretch it with the mechanical stretch.

You know, the Austin bedrock isn’t very deep. So he was pounding most of those holes through bedrock with a bar…

yeah…

With a breaker bar.

I mean, that's… that is hard duty, putting it in that era, you know, now, I don't know how they do it now, I guess they drill it.

He was a perfectionist, so most of them were deeper than they needed to be .

Well, tell me again, how many acres was he putting a fence around?

about 60,

about 60. That's not an inconsiderable amount of post, huh?

I think originally it was probably 63 because that was before loop 360.

Well, 63.3 was the final measurement.

One interesting thing about the history here that you might already be aware of as a historian . . . is that Bull Creek is basically the Balcones fault, that big bluff there is the Balcones fault, and that was the border of the Comanche Nation. I guess it'd be the. . . Would it be the eastern border? Is that the side that the Comanches were they on the west side?

Yeah, yeah.

The eastern border of the Comanche Nation went right through the middle of our property there.

Many, uh, arrowheads have been found up on the bluff. We have some. Got one up there.

And I've read an historical account of when some. . . Some Indian raid. From the description, it sounded like it was right here in Bull Creek Valley, maybe even on our property. But some Indian raid where they came through there and killed a couple folks and kidnapped a girl or something.

Well, they were coming right into early Austin. You know, from the. . . There were raids right into there. And in fact, when Austin was established, they thought there were people thought they you crazy to stick to your state capitol. You know, when Lamar moved it out here… It was Comanche, it was. . . It was out on the back of beyond, and this the west of Austin was. . . Was settled rather late.

What about who was out there in the 1940s what? What were the impressions of who was out there?

Well, I know Dorothy Duval still lived out there. She had a house across back to the Springs Road

and her mother had had a house further down the road here, let me get my bearing here, … down the road here, Dorothy Duval was right there. She and her mother … moved in together later, but her mother's house was down here.

Yeah, just. . .

I think Dorothy was there about where the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company is…

Right next to it.

Frank. Frank Boatright, who was one of the neighbors probably owned about half of Bull Creek Valley. Told me that his grandmother dug the wells that were on our place. There's two, two old wells. One of them still got a nice rock lining down in it. So I don't know if Dorothy Duval was his grandmother, or if there was some other history going back.

What did? Did Frank tell you anything else we're, we're still planning to talk to Frank. We haven't talked to Frank.

Is he still alive?

Yeah, he said he lives at Gerald, around Gerald, he's moved over there.

I know where he lived there, across the waterfall. He used to live there, listed in there.

Oh, he told me about finding Indian artifacts that he had dated at a couple thousand years old, and. . . he mentioned that Sam [inaudible] was known to be down around that area. I don't know if it was relatives [inaudible] km ime it was ever surveyed.

For basically the whole watershed up there?

I don't know how far it extends. It just includes our property, the property we had, yeah. Then at some point, Jess Pruitt owned it. I don't know if he was the next owner or if there were others in between, but that's what shows on our deed.

And then I think Dorothy Duval might have been married to Jess Pruitt. I think she was married more than once, and she probably got it from him. … It. And I think maybe one of their kids had a share in it at one time, because my grandfather said something about when he redid, when he re surveyed it and had to have them update his deed. He had to go get a signature from one of Dorothy Duval's kids.

And then, of course, Harv Simon on the upper part. And I don't know how far back you know what came before him, but he owned quite a bit. I think he owned most of Great Hills. On one end or the other. And I can't tell by looking at the meets and calls of the survey. Of which end it was because those are just confusing to me. But on one end or the other of the property we had was a mill, its used as a landmark in the survey.

You think a water mill?

It just said a mill. My assumption was it was a water powered, because it was on the creek, a water powered sawmill. But all it said was a mill.

There's a big stone cross here…

They had to make a little put up a low dam and then drop the water over, you know, right where they wanted it for the mill…

That was a natural dam.

And it might have been a lot of times they were kind of multi-purpose. You know, grist mill, saw mill, they could move the belts around and gin cotton.

And what can you? Do you have much of the sense of, was there a community, an older community still up that road in when y'all went in there, in World War Two, was there something kind of distinct from Austin?

Beautiful country, absolutely gorgeous country. That'what affected my mother and dad when they were driving down Spicewood Springs Road, they found one section there, especially where there was a waterfall. They didn't buy the property there, put it up the road up East, and … as your southbound on this windy road to the left was a rock, rocky bank, and in the water, wasn't a narrow but it was wide bed of water, oh, 20, 30, feet wide. Water was just running over the rocks there and, and then running under the road and falling into the creek… and trees on both sides, just just gorgeous.

And so that that particular section is what made them fall in love with that area.

What my grandfather characterized some of the earlier owners as hillbillies. I don't know where he got that information. That's the term he used. He talked about when the hillbillies owned it, they did this and that.

I think there was a distinctive community. What I'm you know. . . There was a distinctive community up there. . . that was several decades old by the time that y'all were seeing it in the last legs. You know, I think World War Two is when it kind of. . . But, there have been people up there since, oh, the 1850s or 1860s… And so he said there used to be hillbillies up here?

Yes, he usually characterized the previous, previous ownership with that term.

See, he was a university professor.

Yeah, I understand but there was something real. I do understand there were some distinctive types up there, and there were people that moved through and settled in that area because it reminded them of where they came from. And they did…

One of his hot buttons was the way they cut the trees. He didn't like the way he said he didn't like, the way the hillbillies cut the trees. They just lock, lop off big limbs if they were in their way and they left them looking ugly. (Laughter)

Well, they used the cedar for cedar posts. They were selling cedar posts. I guess they still do. Some of them do.

So was anybody still? Still gro-? Were there cultivated fields along the creek valley in… When the earliest memories from the 40s were people still trying to grow cotton because they sure had.

I don't think so.

Don't remember. . . Don't remember any?

Well now only you said, you said that, that that was all open pasture with, with grass on it.

Yeah they probably, I think they had paddle pastures often cultivated,

Not this pasture. (Giggles)

Okay, so that's what you. . . Ever said? Well, how are those people making money up there? There were still…

Cedar posts.

Cedar posts, most of the trees grew up there after. . . After Irving bought it, didn't they?

That right, because he didn't put cattle on it.

Yeah, it was open, it was open pasture.

And there's a meadow area where it had been meadow. It was meadow earlier. Trees have grown up since.

There weren't any cows to chew down the seedlings. (Giggles)

Now, he leased that property to Mr. Boatright for a while. For his cattle, and , the land has been leased for horses too.

To the Cavanaugh’s– they own the salvage yard.

Recently.

Do you think that a lot of people were probably just letting their cattle run out in the 40s? I mean, everybody didn't have their property fence up there.

Well, they didn't have cattle guards.

Yeah, this part wasn't fenced until my grandfather fenced it. So and he did most of his work in the 50s, so that's likely.

Well, it didn't need to be fenced, really, because … Duval Dorothy Duval owned the property. She lived across the road there, so she didn't need the fencing. And the Bluff was on the other side that Mr. Simonds owned. And the cattle weren't going to jump over the creek from the bluff.

Well, they could get up there. That's a slope. . .

Yeah, but …

This is Sharp…

But cattle knew enough to stay nearby, didn't go running off.

You know what I'm kind of getting at is there are a lot of places in East Texas that didn't really have a stock law into the 1950s, and there was just kind of a gentleman's agreement that everybody left their cattle. . . Nobody perimeter fenced their land, just like Polk County or Hardin County. They didn't perimeter fence their land, and they just parked their cattle and let them run out there and mix and merge with everybody, and the woods were full of different people's cattle. You know, your cattle grew his land, his cattle was a- and it seems like that, maybe a little bit of that was something like that was going on up here, because that's kind of the old southern hill cattle raising.

Have you seen the play TEXAS in Palo Duro Canyon? That's what it covers that, if you remember that subject.

But the thing…

That’s a good question for Frank Boatright, we don't have any direct knowledge of that, but he probably does.

It's just my guess that they… considering how hard it was to fence up there. Uh, (Laughter) I mean, it was like, am I going to do something else, or am I going to spend all my time trying to put up a fence around my 500 acres?

It might be easier to round them up than to fence ‘em.

It's easier to have a gentleman's agreement with your neighbors that you look after- You watch out for mine I watch out for yours.

The reason for the cowboys that kept their eye on the herd.

Reason for branding? Ha.

That too.

Oh, want to get my grandparents names in here. We've given all the names of the previous owners.

Absolutely.

That was Irving and Hazeline Smith. So they're the ones that owned it from… the early 1940s, until they died in the 80s.

Yeah, he passed away. Matthew Irving Smith was his boy with two T's M-A-T-T-I-R-I-V-I…

How do you spell their names.

Matthew Irving Smith was his boy with two T's M-A-T-T-I-R-I-V-I…

And her name was Hazeline, H-A-Z-E-L-I-N-E, Ingram Smith.

I-N-G-R-A-M?

Right.

You always listen to these tapes and you said, “Oh, if I had just had them spell these,”. These would have been very challenging names to figure out.

Well, with alternate spellings possible.

Well, he was a professor at UT.

Right, languages, foreign languages. Spanish and French, mostly for 25 years, and then he studied Russian and taught Russian the last half of his career. And with… with just book learning, he was so meticulous about how to pronounce things that he was conversing with a Russian lady, a lady from Russia, and found out how he had learned. And she said, “Well, you don't even have an accent.”. (Laughter)

He told me that he had a notion that all of us were going to be speaking Russian someday, and he wanted to get a head start. (Laughter)

A lot of people were worried about that.

And he said he taught Czech, too.

Well, where was he from?

Oklahoma.

I think he’s- wasn't born in Hobart. I think he told me?

No, he went to high school in Hobart. He was born in Cashin, Oklahoma.

Well, so he had something of a rural and small town background.

He’s from a farming family, and his father was a minister as well as a farmer.

Yeah, both of them did ... She was the first White woman born in Okemah, Oklahoma.

She's listed as the second child born, but she was the first born.

Actually was Okemah, Indian Territory at that time.

She was the first born there…

First White child.

Officially, she was the second born, because she was a girl, she wasn't listed first.

And her next door neighbors. . . There were Belle and Henry Starr, who the history books say, died 20 years earlier, but we've got pictures of them together with my grandmother, and they look just like the pictures in the history books…

So they currently…

Survived the rumors of their demise. Yeah, (Laughter).

like Jessie James.

Well, where I place your family with regard to this plot you were like in the first generation of the rec- of the the recreational landowners that bought in there for a place to go on the weekend that you were buying…

Maybe there, Maybe there's been people buying in for that purpose earlier, but some of the old families that had been on there from the 19th century, like the Boatrights were still out there on their land when, when you were moving in.

Well, they bought it not only for recreation, but for investment purposes too, because they thought Austin is going to grow out to that direction, and it will be very valuable land.

I've heard my mother say that.

Well, they were before their time, though, with regard to that opinion, in a way, weren't they? Because…

Yes that's why… [Inaudible]

that was regarded, as you could it, you could buy that land pretty cheaply up to the early 1950s I believe.

Well, my grandfather said he had an opportunity to buy Great Hills at…I think he said, $25 an acre. But while he was thinking it over, they went up to 30, and that made him mad, so he didn't buy it. (Laughter).

My father got this idea of buying land for investment, probably from his father, who I remember him characteristically standing there over the furnace, scratching his back on the corner… (Laughs) door facing talking about land, this rich bottom land for farming, and what a good investment that would be in Oklahoma. So my father was in… had learned that from his father, and as an investment.

But there were people, there are people that would have said, about the time that he bought in out there, “You don't want to buy out there in those Cedar Hills” (Giggles). You know, nobody's ever going to want to live out there, right?

Well, at the time that Dad bought this property, the land was selling for $10, maybe $20 an acre, and he wanted that land so bad down there that bottom land that right there… Dorothy Duval said she wanted, … let's see what I was saying earlier this morning, $50 an acre, $50 an acre, when land was going for $10 to $20.

So she was gouging him then, but he wanted it so bad, he went ahead and bought it at $50.

And this is some of that the best area in the where the bottom widens out there.

Well, not really, because so much of it is flood prone. In fact, there's some real estate developers wanting to develop out there, and the city said was the flood level goes so high there, we couldn't you couldn't afford to build on it, because you'd be flooded out every so often. So it's not really good for that...

But for fertility, it's good because all the top soil washes down there from everywhere else.

But, my father wanted the bluff side too, so he could have the whole creek.

Oh, another thing…

Mr. Simonds said he'd do it, providing two thing:s He can get about three acres the upper end for his cattle to drink, and he'd get $100 an acre.

Another thing you might be interested in , before Spicewood Springs Road was built, the creek bed was used for a road and you can still see wagon ruts in the creek bed, where they where they used to drive their wagons up the creek.

Well, that puts my mind of another point down here, still in Bull Creek Valley.

I got a county map one time from State of Texas, and it showed all roads in the county, and I saw one I'd never seen before. It's going right down… this creek down here, went off in here somewhere. Like I know my motorscooter, and I rode down there as far as I could deliver the fence. But it wasn't really what I would call a road. You could see the trail marks in the creek bed and saw where rocks had been cut or something like that, the trail go right by the creek.

But right by the creek there was rock. . . The bedrock there was very– in general– flat. But there were large spaces in there where gaps about this wide and about this deep. (Giggles) Definitely not for high-speed travel. Maybe if you had a wagon with large wheels, you could maneuver it.

And you're not, you're not talking about ruts across. You're talking about them actually getting down, probably with wagons, and going up, getting on the bedrock, on the edge of the creek, or in the creek, yeah, and I mean. . .

Following the creek bed, with the wagons. . .

Well, that's the way they did all over the United States in those days there was no highway.

Well, it depends on… it. In East Texas, you didn't usually have the kind of hard rock bottom on the creeks, yeah. (Whole room expresses agreement.)

But here, yeah, you know, that's a hard country to get through with wagons. I mean, like, if you're trying to get to something to town, you know, in the creek takes the line of least gradient…

Except we use that waterfall…

Yeah. (Room Laughs.)

But for stretches, they would get right down in the creek valley and run on the, run on the bedrock.

Well, there's another thing. It has nothing to do with the creek. Yeah, it does too here with the creek. This map of Grand McNally lied to us. This Bull Creek does not go here. It goes approximately here, and crosses under there.

And in my motor scooter days, I was adventuring around. And I went up this road, this street right here, street paved, and this little section was paved about that far, and then there was a fence and a dirt trail. And I followed this little dirt trail off here. Now, I can't tell you the scale how far it was, but I stumbled onto a. . . Oh! Let me backtrack...

Before all this street paving here. . . Before there was Lakewood Drive. . . Was what they would call it? Before that was there, friend of mine told me about a motorcycle get together out there on Bull Creek. Well, I didn't know [what he was] talking about or where, so he took me out there, and we followed this little trail, like a cattle trail up here, crossed over into there, and about that time, I saw some pretty country. I didn't see any motorcycle riders, and so we got discouraged and turned around, and went back.

Anyway, later on, after it was paved, I went down here and followed this little track. down here. It was, it was a two trail track, but it was gravel, definitely gravel from wearing the grass out. Then I found a racetrack down here… and it looked like a motorcycle race track. Had the dirt humps. (Laughter)

Oh, yeah, I remember we used to have car humps like that down on Riverside Drive or Barton Springs Road.

But these humps were not that high, and it looked like if you got enough speed up on a motorcycle, you could jump up one hump and come down the other hump.

Look you're going to get off on side stories. You should tell them about what that old Indian told you about the tunnel under the Colorado River.

Well that has nothing to do , nothing to do with ...

We. . .The story just for the just for the tape. (Laughter)

Don’t get him started!

What we were just hearing about is downstream. . . Not to this …

This is still Bull Creek. Yeah, it' Bull Creek

And this is still Bull Creek until it gets to there, which is Colorado River. So I'd be still, still a valley, Bull Creek Valley, and you couldn't get to this thing from this side unless you crossed over a hill. That's the way I remember it. The only way you get to there. And there weren't any spectator seats…

Yeah, it was just a pick me up. . .

A dirt race track, I mean it was, it was an oval track.

Well, in the 40s, there was… there was a lot less cedar. A lot more had been cut off. It wasn't as it wasn't as "cedary" as it is now.

Better grazed. Yeah,

More, more cattle, more clearing, more…

Fewer trees. Yeah, fewer.

Fewer trees, for sure, because it was more conducive for grass. Grass would grow in the sun. In fact, when Mr. Boatright was leasing our property for his cattle. . .I think he cut some big cedar trees. And there were piles of big cedar trees that he had cut just to clear it so the grass would grow for his cattle to eat.

I think he I think he built them, read in the paper where he built a cedar house too out of the cedar that he cut. You can ask him about that.

Well, in regards to what he was saying, which has nothing to do with Bull Creek, but it does have to do with the Mount Bonnell. Somebody I worked with at Balcones Research Center called JJ Pickle Research now.

Anyway, he said he was talking to an Indian, an old Indian, who said he remembered when he was a boy, the Indian was a boy, that he was with his, some of his tribe there, and they had robbed a wagon train, something like that, part of it was carrying payroll for the Civil War soldiers. They robbed it and they took the money and stuff, and they went to the Colorado River with their horses. And they had to get off their horses and swim with their horses through an opening under what we call Mount Bonnell now, into a cave, and that's where they put their stuff. And he went out through another opening, which I think I found one time, but I can't find it again. Think they closed it off. Went out there to get food and stuff for his fellow Indians. He'd bring that stuff back through the cave and feed em'. . .

Well, there were no Indians by the time you moved up there, right?

That was…

What was it like further up the road, further up Spicewood.

Would you know. . .As you go away from Austin was the road good in the in the 40s? Or was it a hard surface road? Was it a gravel?

Gravel.

It was gravel. So it was gravel out there right? and then it's…

it was gravel all the way up to Jollyville Road.

Well, was it really gravel, or was it just a Collegiate bed?

Was it like? He means? Was it like gravel brought in, or was it just a hard surface?

I remember daddy driving that was it a ‘32 or a ‘39 Chevrolet?

‘39 Chevy.

‘39 Chevy

Anyway. . . Climbing that steep road at…

. . .Both ends…

Yeah, coming back to town…Anyway, and he really had to take a run and go zooming up there. And it was gravel.

It was scarier than it used to be, because the side sloped down at a sharper angle that's been leveled out

and it was narrower,

And, you know, you could look off to the side, and it went way down on both sides, and you were struggling to get up. (Laughs)

If you don't normally drive that road, that's still a startling road. I mean, that's a big grade.

And it may have even been a steeper grade than it is now. It sure seemed like it…

Right now this, this map is not, this map is not correct. This shows the Old Spicewood Springs Road right here, and it goes, it doesn't still. I penciled in this, this part right here, which is actually the old road, but the new road… the new road … This is not right here. Rand McNally, this is really over here.

So that map has a lot of problems!

Also, this is a non-existent Street. Never has been there. And yet Rand Mcnally. . .He gives it a name (Room laughs) Yucca Drive, I think its called.

Well, there is a Yucca Drive somewhere in that area

There is a Yucca Drive...

Not there.

There it is.

One of our memories was when we would come down to visit the folks. A lot of times they would take us out camping on the property. Our kids were small. And one time we camped out, and it rained real hard the night that they were out there, and the creek got up pretty high. I was afraid to cross over, but Irving decided to go ahead and cross over about that time.

Well, he nearly got washed off too. I saw it. The saw the car about to...

So anyway, it was pretty hard. It was pretty hard for us to decide to cross, but he decided to go ahead. And so we did. We made it through. But one of the big problems that Austin has with these big creeks that flood over.

Well, this creek would really get up sometimes, right? I mean, it's a big drainage, yeah,

And it would, it would get up 15 feet high sometimes. I mean, you could see the water line, , on the trees. You drive along the road there, way above the creek, and yet, you would see the water line maybe... seven or eight feet above the level of the road.

Well, there's driftwood up on the property, yeah.

Oh. One thing you might be interested in, my grandmother said she saw cougar up on on the property, on the bluff in the ‘50s.

We see deer up there now. . . Deer. Armadillos.

And we've killed, killed rattlesnakes out there as late as maybe the late 50s,

Water Mouth Moccasins.

Did you? Would you hear coyotes in those days?

Cottonmouths, too.

I'll say, sure, I don't remember any.

Yeah, I didn't hear any.

They had coyotes in Oklahoma, but not there.

You know, they occasionally site cougars now in the country, just west of Austin, you know, they have huge ranges, and they're very isolated, but I bet, but she saw one. It wasn't like I heard a strange sound, and it might have been a cougar. It was like it was a great big cat with a long tail, what else?

And another, another thing she mentioned a couple of times was that when there was a drought we had a deep hole in the creek on our property. I think there was a, I'm pretty sure there was a big spring there, because when I went out there in the rain, I'd see bubbles coming up like, like it was recharging the spring. The rain was recharging the spring.

But right there at that point, that was probably the deepest, the deepest point in the creek for for several miles, and the last place to dry up. And she said, when she went out there during the drought, she'd see dozens of snakes feeding on the on the fish that it accumulated in that small area from all up and down the creek.

That's interesting. Probably, when it got dark, the coons were there too. (Tom Stenis laughs.) But anyway, all the, all the periodically, all the fish would get trapped in the the deeper pools.

Yes. Now we've been fishing out there just in the last few years during a drought when that was one of the, some of the little water that was left in the creek. And the fishing was real good there during that time, because those fish had come there from, I mean, it was only water left. So they'd come there for miles, up and down…

And they were probably hungry.

Yeah, (Room giggles.)

There was a time. . . At least once, I remember that Irving dredged out what we call the swimming hole, one of the two stones and where we fished too and he dredged it out to make it the..

Swimming hole in the fishing hole were the same?

Right, (Laughs) There was a big grapevine that grew on the tree, huge grapevine.

Both the tree and vine are dead now

They're gone.

Well, did you build out there? You...

We never built.

You never built.

My mother wanted to build out there. Oh, she wanted to, oh I mean, my father wanted to, in the worst way. He wanted to build up at the north end, up here on the bluff. But by that time, my mother was getting up in years, and she got afraid that medical, , help would not be available. And there were hippies growing, , it was a hippie era, in the 60s...

They were camping out along...

They were, oh, she was afraid of the hippies.

Yeah, there were a lot of homeless people. In fact, right down in this area right here. There was three homeless families I knew about.

There was. . . (End of side A.)

… First drove down this road here. I noticed two cars parked, one right behind the other,

and I talked to people there, and it turned out they were living in one car and using the other one for transportation. Then I drove down a little bit further here, and I noticed a huuuuge white, you might call it a tent, but it had a big hole in the middle of the top. And I asked them what that was, and they said it was a parachute.

They were using a parachute for a roof. They were living under that parachute. Then I drove down to the creek end, down here, and off about 100 yards from the creek end, there was another family living there.

By the way, on the way down there, there was a kind of a cross creek that I had to cross. Had nothing to do with people, but it has to do with creatures. And. . . I wanted to get that little, that turtle, not exactly a small turtle. It was about, ohhhh, about 10 inches long, about eight inches wide, about three or four inches tall. Wasn't a terrapin, it was a turtle. I finally, I got brave enough to get over there and pick the turtle up, put him out on the bank so I could drive through the creek, when I got through with my adventuring, came back when I got through. Turtle was still there, so I picked him up, and I noticed something odd about his head process I'd never seen before. Anyway, I picked up the turtle and put him back in the water where he had been. Drove on. And then later on that day, I went to a pet shop, and I noticed one of those turtles in the pet shop. It was, I think it was called a box turtle or something like that. Anyway, whatever it was, they were selling them for $25 a piece. (Room Laughs)

Well, what about the hippies? What were they doing?

Your mother was concerned about...

We didn't live here. But whatever hippies do: smoking pot? (Laughs)

Were they living? Were they living there?

They were living there.

And were they living kind of like this?

Into drugs? Yes.

Like camping out.

She was afraid of them.

About what they might do, they might steal in order to get their food, and she didn't want to endanger them.

But they weren't coming out on the weekend so much as they were just kind of. . .

They Lived there,

Permanently camped out there.

Well, in fact, just recently, , within the last well, a year before we sold it, which was a year ago, we had seen evidence of people living out there. We saw campfires and we found tents, in fact, one and Tom and I. . . Brought in some things. (Giggles).

Silverware, pottery…

Yeah, oriental people had…

, flatware, um...

Show your spoon right now, from the tire… (Laughs)

Dishes, glasses…

And Chinese things and anyway. . .they were homeless people. They had been camping out there.

You know, apparently, there's still a lot of a lot of trespassing going on out there that that is a major, you know, it's a recreation it's a recreational site for people who, theres a lot of. . . you know, a lot of Austin visitors that maybe aren't completely appreciated. Fraternities like to celebrate out there sometimes.

That's kind of strange. It's It's true also other areas around Austin. But you get, well, they're trespassers, from the point of view of a land owner.

It's like the sort of thing. . . It might help to make you decide that, well, maybe I want to sell out or something, you know, if I can't keep people off my land…

Now, my grandmother wanted to have a horse out there, but I guess my grandfather thought that was too much trouble. But she, she was from a ranch family, and she, she liked having livestock around, I guess. And fact, her, her brother performed for about a year with Will Rogers and Tom Stenis Mix on Vaudeville.

Yeah, somebody in Hollywood invited our Uncle. . . Earl Ingram and Tom Mix both to come to Hollywood. Well, Tom Mix did, and Earl decided he liked the quiet life, so he didn't go, but they performed on top of a horse, rope, tricks.

Yeah, and they now, they didn't just flop the loop back and forth like you see them doing today. They actually knew how to twirl it. That's kind of a lost art. My grandmother said she, she remembers watching them practice when she was a little girl, and that her brother could ride a horse at a full gallop, standing up straight… with his feet on top of the saddle, standing up straight, twirling a rope climb under the horse and back up the other side, with the horse still going at a full gallop without ever dropping the loop.

That's pretty good. (Room Laughter) I haven't seen that recently. . .

And my. . . Let's see my son told me. . . Relayed a story to me that was told to him by Uncle Earl, by Earl's son. He said that Earl, when it was time for him to learn to shoot he took his son, Parker, out by the barn to teach him how to shoot, and he gave him a washer. He said, Here, throw this as far as you can throw it. And so Parker reared back and he could throw it pretty far because he was a strong farm boy, and he threw it as far as he could. And he said, “Earl,”. He stood there with his gun by his side and watched it until it started its downward arc, and then he just raised and and fired without even really taking time to aim. And he said, “Well, let's go check it,”. And they went out and traced out there a few 100 feet and found the washer laying on the ground, and it looked just like it did when he threw it. And Earl said, “Well, I got it,”. Said, “No, you didn't get it. There's not a mark on,” he said, “Well, let me prove it to you. Throw it back toward the barn,”.

So he threw it back toward the barn. And Earl did the same thing, you know, he stood there with his gun by his side and watched it till it started his downward loop, and then he just kind of raised and fired with one fluid motion. Said, “Well, I got it again,”. Said, “Well, let's go check it,” So they went, and they looked all over, looked all over the side of the barn, until finally, they found this, a washer embedded in the side of the barn, and they dug it out and looked at it. It had one little nick on the inside edge of the hole.

Wow. (Laughs in awe)

That hadn't been there when he looked at it before, right? So he hadn't, it hadn't gone, bullet Hadn't gone right through the hole this time...

So he was, he was not only good enough to shoot it through the hole without hitting it, but he was good enough to intentionally nick it so that he could prove that he did it.

Yeah, (Laughs) not bad…

(Inaudible) There was down here, Camp Tom Wooten Boy Scout camp,

Probably that's… Probably… Yeah. . .

Where the streets are now.

Yeah, that was, okay…

When I was in Boy Scouts at about the same age as dad bought the property up here with camp Tom Stenis Wooten over here, and they also had property standing way over in here too.

Boy Scout…

Way over in here? They don't have that anymore.

Yeah, that's basically west of what's now 360.

Well, it was on both sides, but yeah, the camp itself was right there east...

That's where that was, where all these streets are . . .Homes and such.

Where is there anything else that I should have asked you about? I've got a picture of it. . . What about the pig farm. There was...

Oh, there was a pig farm up the road from us.

Up by the . . .?

Well, you go up the steep hill, and it was on the left, I believe, of course, it was there until just recently, few years ago, and always held my nose when I went by there. (Laughs).

Well, that's part of the old era, right? I mean, everybody's got that's not pig farm property up there now,

Not now, but it was then.

Well, yeah, I thought I just thought of another story I hadn't thought about before ... The Salvage yard that the Cavanaughs own, they bought from Frank Cantwell.

And according to my, my grandparents, their family was kind of shady. And you might ask Larry Peel about this. He's a developer that built Still House Canyon. Actually, the salvage yard was moved to where it is now from, from Stillhouse Canyon, because when Larry bought Stillhouse Canyon, but the salvage yard was there, and when they sold that to him, they moved it. I suspect that the name Still House Canyon has something to do with the business that Frank Cantwell was running out behind his salvage yard.

Well, you know, they're very persistent. . . Stories from them, from the late 19th century on, that that was a significant, you know, that was a kind of hard place to make a living up there. And the people made charcoal. You know, when you go back in the ninth- they made charcoal, made a lot of charcoal, and sold it in Austin, and they, they cut the cedar, and they're persistent. And I, I personally think it's very probable that they're, you know, they're all those nice springs up there. The most basic thing, if you want to, if you want to set up a, just a small still, you know, you need good water first and foremost. And we hadn't talked, we haven't said anything about the springs. I mean, that whole area was was characterized by

Spicwood Springs? Hello?

Yeah, fine springs…

Speaking about water, and I'm still thinking about that mill. I have the impression. . . I seem to remember seeing the remains of a mill at the south end of the property.

Yeah, that's kind of where I thought it was. . .

Actually not even on the property. But this, this, this area of the creek right here.

Where the Three Forks come together. . .

Yeah, but still after they've after they've come together,

Close to what is now where on the map is being shown at 360? Just upstream of there is where...

Well, actually. . . My impression, in my memory, was that probably down in here, some.

Maybe a little downstream.

It was kind of a waterfall right in here, and I'm thinking it was right in there somewhere.

What were you looking at? That made you think there had been a mill there. What can you describe? What were you seeing?

I think I was seeing some artificial stone structures.

Yeah, they would, you know, they would get a low dam and then drop the water through whatever slot they wanted to run the mill.

There's remains of an old house right here too. You can see it on the it shows up on the foundation line shows up on the aerial photos.

Where? Here?

It's right in here, it's close to the, well, yeah,

The well is over there. And the garden was among the trees

It's not, not a very big house. It's maybe 20 [feet] by 10 [feet] or something like that.

There's a wall there, yeah,

And there's big, there's big square, , stones there that came from the foundation.

So maybe all this we're talking about had been related in the sense, you know, the certainly, the well, in the house, maybe,

And the garden…

And the Garden.

Yeah, there's a garden wall. There's a stone garden wall there. And did Irving build that wall?

No, it was there.

Yeah, and it's a big garden. It's a lot bigger than the house.

Well, so did you? Did he have his garden there?

He farmed? Yeah, he used that area

He previously [had] been a gardener. That's what that's what you're sharing?

And they said there was a hot spot in the garden about the size of a body.

What do you mean a hot spot?

Well, I mean a spot where everything just grew a whole lot better than anywhere else. SO just...

suspicious, right?

Yeah, and you mentioned a spot like that up on the other end.

Wasn't hot spot, it was a soaking area.

About the same size, right?

There's a place up here where you find a lot of rusted cans, things where people have used it for a dumping ground that maybe trespassers had, I don't know somebody has

Years ago, it's all rusty now.

Cans, license plates, what have you.

Well, people weren't, wouldn't have been carrying their garden in or their garbage into. There wouldn't have been any garbage removal in earlier time.

Probably not.

Let's see…