The Great Depression brought Austin, Texas face to face with challenges the magnitude of which it had never before confronted. Though less heavily impacted than the industrialized northeast, Central Texas suffered through high unemployment, wage reductions, homelessness, and severely depressed crop values throughout the 1930s. Declining tax revenues hampered efforts to address such problems while relief organizations at one point ran out of funds due to the unprecedented demand for assistance. Citizens coped and endured these tests of their mettle. More importantly, they recognized and seized the era's possibilities to lay the foundations upon which modern Austin would arise in subsequent years.

Optimistic in outlook, Austinites quickly and agressively pursued federal assistance from Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal than any other city in Texas. Effective political representation from city hall to Washington, D. C., produced grants and loans totaling tens of millions of dollars. While attacking unemployment and providing relief for the needy, leaders designed projects which served the city's long-term needs. Austin solved its age-old problem of flooding, secured a reliable reservoir of drinking water, and expanded its revenue-generating public utility system. The city improved its municipal airport, attracted a major military installation, built roads and bridges, expanded its educational facilities, and developed its world famous park system. The booming Sunbelt metropolis on the tranquil river beneath the hills was but a dream during the Great Depression, but therein lie its roots.

Austinites exhibited little fear in the days and months following the collapse of the Great Bull Market in October 1929. Even as panic led to bank failures, plummeting consumer spending, and spreading job layoffs in other parts of the country, the economic crisis seemed far away and confined to the nation's financial centers and industrial sector. Agriculture was of much greater immediate concern in Central Texas. Drought, heat, and insects had devastated the area's 1929 cotton crop. Coming on top of falling crop values throughout the decade, Travis County farmers pumped fewer dollars into merchants' cash registers and struggled to make mortgage payments to city banks.

As home of the University of Texas and the seat of state government, Austin's economic base nonetheless appeared unassailable. Workers at the school and capitol complex constituted one-third of the city's total payroll and the presence of nearly six thousand students guaranteed the infusion of significant moneys semester after semester. Of critical importance for the future, university officials, convinced enrollment would double during the Thirties and swamp present facilities, won voter approval in 1931 for the issuance of bonds using the Permanent University Fund (PUF) as collateral. Design work began almost immediately on additional dormitories and a new library facility. What turned out to be the largest construction program in school history assured construction jobs and a steady infusion of cash crucial to Austin's survival.

Despite such bright spots, the Depression's arrival in Central Texas became undeniable by 1932. As confidence in the economy approached free-fall, private-sector construction slid in value over one million dollars in 1931 and halved again by the end of 1932. Travis County farmers, long accustomed to financial difficulties, suffered through the demise of the cotton market with prices falling below six cents a pound. Agrarian despair imperiled the solvency of two area banks with growing stacks of uncollectible farm notes. Only a merger of the firms coupled with a loan from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) averted failure. Struggling to keep operating budgets balanced in an area of declining tax revenue, the University, the State of Texas, and the city of Austin pruned jobs wherever possible while simultaneously slashing wages. Retail sales dropped as rapidly as wages and disposable income. Fear spread and workers pinched pennies fearing that they would be the next to be laid off. The City of Austin felt impelled by 1931 to open an office to assist the unemployed and needy. By February 1932 over a thousand jobless men had enrolled. The numbers would double and double again before the deflationary spiral reached bottom.

President Herbert Hoover's response to the Depression had from the beginning stressed voluntary efforts to relieve suffering, minimal government intervention, and measures to restore business confidence. It clearly wasn't working in Austin or anywhere across the nation. Elected at the height of Republican prosperity four years earlier, Hoover now became the country's scapegoat for the economic debacle. His bid for reelection and vindication proved an exercise in futility. In stark contrast, Democratic candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt's pledge to pursue alternative strategies energized voters. The ebullient New Yorker's call for a "new deal" produced a sweeping victory on election day. Austinites enthusiastically supported the change in both leadership and direction. Following FDR's inauguration, city leaders launched their own campaign for assistance in myriad forms to cope with deteriorating local conditions. Their efforts bore phenomenal success for years to come.

Political clout in Washington, D. C., helped throw open the doors of the federal treasury. Within the rapidly expanding executive branch, two Texans - Vice-president John Nance Garner and RFC chairman Jesse Holman Jones - played pivotal roles. Garner, despite his characterization of the vice-presidency as "not worth a pitcher of warm piss," provided invaluable service as the administration's liaison to Congress. The crusty Uvalde native consistently promoted Texas interests while shepherding almost all of FDR's legislative proposals to enactment. Before his term as the nation's banker ended, Jones oversaw the expenditure of over $50 billion. A government lending agency whose initial mission had been the rescue of banks threatened by insolvency, the RFC's scope of operations expanded significantly with the New Deal. Its loans financed innumerable public works projects, enabled the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to safeguard bank deposits, and underwrote government efforts to save homes and farms from mortgage foreclosure. While other officials enjoyed greater visibility, Jones channeled desperately needed funds to Texas through his control of the purse strings.

No single delegation wielded more disproportionate influence in congress during the Thirties than that of Texas. Decades of continuous service had enabled various figures to climb the seniority ladder to power. All told, Texans chaired a dozen congressional committees critical to the success or failure of the New Deal. Senators Morris Sheppard and Tom connally presided over Military Affairs and Public Buildings & Grounds. On the House side, future speaker Sam Rayburn, Marvin Jones, Hatton Sumners, Joseph Mansfield, and James P. Buchanan respectively chaired Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Agriculture, Judiciary, Rivers & Harbors, and Appropriations. When Buchanan, whose district included Austin, succumbed to a fatal heart attack in early 1937, successor Lyndon Baines Johnson made up for his lack of seniority with unbounded energy and brazen armtwisting to guarantee the unabated flow of federal dollars. Remarkably, its volume grew significantly. It is little wonder, then, why President Roosevelt remarked during the Depression years that Texas was running the government of the United States more largely than any other state.

Such leverage in the nation's capital, however, would have benefitted Austinites little had they not had the foresight, willingness, and acumen to take advantage of the possibilities at hand. Serving continuously as mayor from 1933 to 1949, Tom Miller was the foundation of stable and effective municipal government. Miller was a successful entrepreneur who moved effortlessly between the worlds of business and politics. His influence in each complimented his efforts in the other. An enthusiastic and loyal supporter of Franklin Roosevelt, the mayor set out from his first day at City Hall to pursue every available federal dollar to cope with the Depression's impact on his beloved hometown. Miller also grasped that government largesse from New Deal agencies could be used to resolve Austin's age-old flooding problems, modernize the city's publicly-owned utility systems, expand its transportation infrastructure, and develop its park facilities. Austin's powerful business community led by long-time chamber of commerce secretary Walter E. Long embraced the mayor's vision and leant invaluable support to its realization. The general populace was no less committed. Voters repeatedly approved proposed bond issues in order to qualify for federal assistance in myriad forms. With determination to cope with the present, all segments of the community pledged themselves to their common future.

No Depression-era project in Central Texas exceeded in scope and impact the effort to tame the colorado, which had dominated the dreams of Austinites since the city's founding. For early settlers, it held out the promise of a transportation route to the Gulf coast, a reliable reservoir of drinking water, and the means to power machinery. Austin would be simultaneously the seat of government, an inland port, and a great manufacturing center. Flaws in this sweeping vision, however, quickly became apparent. The Colorado proved too shallow to accommodate vessels of any real size. More importantly, topography and highly variable rainfall patterns combined to create two seemingly totally different rivers. The Colorado would all but dry up in periods of extended drought. But when heavy downpours blanketed the Hill Country west of town, the river became a raging torrent leaving physical destruction and loss of life in its wake.

Repeated attempts to corral the Colorado proved futile. The original Austin Dam, completed in 1893, fell victim to floodwaters on April 6, 1900. Rebuilt in 1913, the dam failed yet again just two years later. The lesson of such efforts was clear; a single structure was insufficient to the task. If the potential benefits of the Colorado were ever to be realized, a whole series of hydroelectric dams would have to be constructed. Such a massive undertaking was beyond the financial resources of the capital city and also, apparently, the State of Texas. While the cash-strapped legislature created the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) in 1934 to develop and manage the vast watershed's resources, it refused to fund its operation.

Paradoxically, it was the Great Depression which enabled Central Texans to finally realize their dreams. LCRA administrators, with legal authority but no money to launch operations, turned to Washington, D. C., and the New Deal for help. Application for millions of dollars of long-term low-interest loans and grants from the Public Works Administration (PWA) initially failed to win approval. Only political pressure exerted by Congressman Buchanan, Mayor Miller, and others overcame legal questions and PWA skepticism regarding the new authority's ability to repay such debts. When Buchanan died unexpectedly in 1937, successor Lyndon Johnson obtained the additional tens of millions needed to complete the massive undertaking. With funding in place, the Authority awarded construction contracts on Hamilton Dam outside of Burnet, Marshall Ford Dam in western Travis County, and Austin Dam in the heart of the capital city. Additional structures were subsequently erected to complete the Highland Lakes chain. Construction costs reacher $72.4 million. The effort, however, provided approximately five thousand jobs and pumped desperately needed cash into the entire region throughout the latter years of the Depression. A half century later, the benefits of flood control, water conservation, cheap public power, rural electrification and tourism continue to accrue beyond perhaps even the wildest dreams of those who made the vision reality when times were terrible. According to Walter Long, the project was "the major factor having to do with the growth of Austin."

Corralling the Colorado, while vital, was but the beginning of Austin's transformation. Major infrastructure development was necessary to address inadequacies and prepare for future growth. Armed with repeated bond authorizations from voters, Tom Miller pursued every available federal dollar to meet the city's needs. Working through Congressman Buchanan's office, the mayor enjoyed phenomenal success. PWA loans and grants for municipal projects totaled $6 million by 1936, more than any other Texas city. Against all odds, the flow of funds actually increased following Buchanan's death. Lyndon Johnson proved even more adroit at squeezing every available dollar out of the new Deal bureaucracy; absolutely nothing was left on the table. Financed by Harold Ickes and the PWA, Austin built new roads and bridges, constructed a new sewage disposal facility, and expanded its water and light systems. City Hall underwent renovation and enlargement. A new automatic alarm network protected residents from the hazard of fire while a new trash incinerator eased stress on the landfill. Other federal agencies contributed as well. Unemployed Austinites on relief rolls found forty-cent-an-hour Works Progress Administration (WPA) jobs channeling the city's numerous creeks. Other WPA personnel paved and lengthened runways at Robert Nueller Airport after erecting a passanger terminal.

Modern Austin's idea of "quality of life" has long embraced the amenities of parks, pools, greenbelts, and recreation. "Parks and recreational facilities," the city's master plan of 1938 maintained, "are as much a necessity to the health and happiness of people as are its schools, sewer systems, water supply, pavements, and drainageÖno city plans would be complete or even comprehensive which did not make ample provision for such facilities." Nonetheless, the depression blocked progress until 1933 when New Deal assistance became available.

With the onset of Miller's mayoralty, aggressive actions became the norm. Austin greatly expanded its park facilities utilizing workers and funds from the Civilian Works Administration, civilian Conservation Corps, Works Progress Administration, and National Youth Administration. Acreage on the south side of the Colorado abutting the natural oasis of Barton Springs became Zilker Park where by 1936 residents could swim, ride horseback, camp, hike, picnic, fish, boat, dance, or attend weekly musical presentations. Sixty years later, three-quarters of a million people relax in its environs each and every year. Improvements at Deep Eddy on the opposite shore resulted in a modern pool, bathhouse, and playground. Small neighborhood facilities sprung up in every quadrant of the community. Miller also engineered acquisition of 1,200 acres along the new Lake Austin created by the LCRA dams under construction. City Park was drawing record crowds by decade's end.

Parks and recreation programs were universally popular; public housing was anything but. Some Austinites found it embarassing to admit that there was a problem. For others, such as Congressman Johnson and Mayor Miller, it was all too obvious. Fully twenty percent of residences lacked electricity, running water, and indoor toilets. Slum living conditions existed in certain areas of town. Trapped in abject poverty, the poorest of families dwelt in two-room four hundred-square-foot shotgun shacks. Such conditions notwithstanding, opposition surfaced when Johnson and Miller sought $450,000 from the United States Housing Authority (USHA) to construct public rental units. Some questioned the wisdom of building new units, which they claimed would blight certain sections of town while simultaneously removing existing units from local property tax rolls. Owners of substandard structures to be razed complained of the denial of private property rights. Still others expressed opposition to subsidized housing for racial minorities.

Such outcries convinced the congressman to take to the offensive. Speaking on radio station KNOW, LBJ asserted that "shabby and miserable and man-forsaken cribs" could be found within four blocks of Congress Avenue. Federal monies were available to eradicate the "shacks, and hovels, and pig sties, and all of the other foul holes in which the under-privileged have had to live." Public housing would boost the value of surrounding property, increase tax revenue, and attack the disease and crime such squalor produced.

Johnson's intervention on behalf of those with little if any power proved crucial. A unanimous city council endorsement enabled the congressman to secure final USHA approval in March 1938. Over three hundred families with average annual incomes of but $600 would eventually move into new garden apartments at Chalmers, Santa Rita, and Rosewood complexes where monthly rent and utilities averaged twelve dollars.

While municipal officials coped with such challenges, educational leaders faced their own critical problems. Their decisions proved crucial to Austin's triumph over the Great Depression.

University of Texas students, faculty, and administrators had coped with an inadequate physical plant since the school's opening in 1883. While revenue from vast tracts of West Texas acreage had been set aside under the state's constitution to finance the university's construction and operation, livestock grazing fees in the permian Basin generated but minimal sums. Temporary wooden frame buildings dominated the campus and students joked about the school's trendy "shackeresque" architectural style. The discovery of oil on university land in 1923 coupled with a 1931 constitutional amendment authorizing the issuance of bonds against the Permanent University Fund provided regents with a unique opportunity to improve facilities. Assured of additional revenues and faced with projections that the student population would double by 1940, regents launched the most sweeping construction program in school history.
 
 

The Great Depression presented unique opportunities for those wise enough to see them. Given the era's unprecedented deflation, every construction dollar spent during the decade bought more brick and mortar than ever before. Furthermore, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal program made additional monies available which regents pursued enthusiastically. The result was, in essence, a new campus. Twenty new building sprang forth at a cost of approximately six million dollars. Goldsmith, Welch, and Waggener Halls provided new classroom space. Prather, Roberts, Corothers, Andrews, and Breckenridge dormitories, financed by a million-dollar loan from Harold Ickes' PWA, housed ever-larger numbers of new students. Such campus landmarks as Hogg Auditorium, the Texas Union building, and the Littlefield Memorial Fountain came to grace the forty acres. The Depression era also produced the university's most identifiable structure - the UT Tower. Regents had already launched construction of a new main building when $1.6 million in loan and grant money from the PWA became available to expand the facility by adding a twenty-seven story tower housing offices and the university's largest library collection. This project alone kept two hundred and fifty Austin laborers employed for a year and a half.

The impact of this extensive building program on the Austin economy was significant. Private sector construction in the state capital had plummeted in the early part of the decade with recovery coming only in the years following World War II. Area laborers who otherwise would have swollen relief rolls found gainful employment on the university campus. Wages earned there ended up in merchants' cash registers, in the city's tax collection office, and in property owners' hands. Walter Long, reacting to Austin's designation by Forbes magazine as "one of the two bright spots in the nation," credited university expansion along with LCRA dam construction for the city's economic health. Both were essential.

Austin voters and local school district leaders were no less determined in seizing upon the era's possibilities. PWA officials announced in October, 1935 their approval of the city's application for a $350,000 loan and an outright grant of $285,000 for construction, repair, and equipment at existing facilities in addition to site acquisition for two new schools. Voters immediately assented to $350,000 in bonds to qualify for the loan. Austines' support of public education was rewarded in Julhy, 1936 with an additional PWA grant of a quarter million dollars. Shortly thereafter laborers were on the job building Robert E. Lee Elementary. Workers did landscaping chores at Pease Elementary while across the street Austin High underwent expansion. Down the hill on Lamar Boulevard school district officials oversaw construction of a sports complex anchored by House Park Stadium. Once again, the wisdom to act in times of trouble produced long-lasting benefits.

Austin's last major Depression-era initiative was no less rewarding. As the economy slowly began to recover and emergency preparations for World War II resulted in a quintupling of military expenditures, Mayor Miller, ever alter for an opportunity, pressed Congressman Johnson to secure a military installation of some type for his capital area constituents. Austinites preferred an air base and were willing to donate whatever land was required. Such an installation would infuse the area economy with millions of dollars in construction costs and payroll revenues. Furthermore, if an agreement with the military were so structured, such a facility with any improvements would revert to the city following decommissioning at war's end. Austin might thereby gain a new municipal airport with the military essentially footing the bill. Johnson's office delivered and local voters approved $600,000 to acquire the proffered 3,200-acre site southeast of the city in the farming community of Del Valle. The army air base was operational within twelve months.

Austin's $600,000 investment proved phenomenally far-sighted. Political influence in Washington, D. C., and the onset of the cold War averted decommissioning following the defeat of the Axis powers. Bergstrom Air Force Base continued operations for fifty-one years. When cuts in the federal budget led to closure in 1993, Austin officials projected the cost to the city's economy at $406 million a year. The wisdom of earlier commitments quickly became apparent, however, when title reverted to the city and the decision was made to shift municipal air operations from overcrowded Mueller to the abandoned base. Opening in May 1999, transforming the facility into Austin-Bergstrom International Airport saved the city approximately $200 million in land purchases and runway construction costs.

In conclusion, Austin suffered from the same difficulties as other municipalities around the country during the Depression years if to a lesser degree because of its advantages as the seat of state government and the home of the University of Texas. Once economic collapse spread from the financial and industrial centers of the northeast across the entire nation, the Depression's impact became undeniable. While never reaching the national average, unemployment climbed to unprecedented levels. Workers in both the public and private sectors faced severe wage cuts. Consumer spending and construction activity plummeted and homelessness became a significant problem. Nor did the area's agricultural sector escape. Cotton prices reached record lows in the early Thirties.

Declining tax revenues hampered the ability of municipal leaders to cope. They nonetheless foughtthe Depression to a standstill, dealt successfully with long-standing problems such as flooding, and laid the groundwork for a new Austin. Entering the decade with minimal bonded indebtedness, the city had the flexibility to borrow against the future to deal with the troubles of the present. Mayor Miller and the council he dominated pursued every available federal dollar from President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal recovery program and voters overwhelmingly approved repeated bond issuances to qualify for such assistance. Political muscle in Washington, D. C., produced loans and grants at each and every turn. Such funds were invested wisely in projects of long-lasting value. Unemployment fell, the needy found relief, and economic activity increased. Of greatest import, Austin stood poised as the Great Depression drew to a close to become much more than the sleepy, little town of the past.
 
 

© L. Patrick Hughes, 1999