Welcome!

Since 2003, my husband Rob and I have gathered, shared, and preserved stories of neighbors creating community. For us, community is a continuum of past, present, and future. We believe that being a good neighbor is a creative process—one that matters. Our project, Voices of the Violet Crown, includes:

  • Our blog. The website, regularly updated, also includes features, films, photos, and community resources (right) and more information about our project (top).
  • Our community/history exhibits. Described by a Violet Crown Festival corporate sponsor as “the event’s centerpiece” and by neighbors as “the heart of the festival.”
  • Our oral histories of neighbors ages 6 through 90. Our website and films include video clips, quotes, stills, and transcripts from the interviews.

We’re grateful for good friends of the project and honored to have received the Mary Faye Barnes Award for Excellence in Community History Projects. Our project papers and recordings are archived at the Austin History Center.

NEWEST HISTORY  —  2024  •  2023  •  2022  •  2021  •  2020

LATEST FEATURE UPDATES

HOW OUR PROJECT BEGAN

Rob and I were inspired to create and sustain Voices of the Violet Crown as we worked alongside neighbors to raise funds for the mosaic Wall of Welcome in Austin, beginning in 2003. VVC aims to foster understanding and participation, right where we live, by showing how community and history are interwoven.

In 2003, a group of us in Brentwood and Crestview created the Violet Crown Festival and nonprofit Violet Crown Community Works to help build and sustain community by supporting neighborhood enhancement projects, beginning with the Wall of Welcome on Woodrow Avenue. Rob and I volunteered at the festival for the first seven years; I served on the VCCW board for its first four years. Like other neighbors, Rob and I created a mosaic for the Wall of Welcome (right), and he created one for the popular restaurant Little Deli.

Another inspiration for Voices of the Violet Crown is visionary writer, farmer, and activist Wendell Berry. We feature his wise words in the right sidebar.

And, we continue to be inspired by our neighbors, in all the ways they make a difference, right where we live.

Thanks for visiting our website!

Susan & Rob Burneson, Crestview neighbors since 1985

Posted in Community, Events, People, Places, Streets

WABAC Machine, Part 12

Copyright 2024 Susan Burneson. All rights reserved. Kindly talk with us before reproducing any website content. (What’s a WABAC Machine? Find out here.)

2023 • A FEW HIGHLIGHTS

JANUARY 7 • Former Brentwood neighbor Kay Nell Swenson Ramsey, below, died. Kay’s parents, Gladstone and Erna Swenson, built one of the first houses on Ruth Avenue in the late 1940s. Sixty years later, Kay contributed family photos and stories to our neighborhood’s mosaic wall and oral history projects. My remembrance of Kay appears here, under “2023.” Thanks to Diane Larson for including it in the October 2023 issue of the Brentwood Neighborhood Association newsletter.

JANUARY 27 • New update to Voices of the Violet Crown: Domino & The Little Red Hen.

MARCH 4 • It’s My Park Day, held in Brentwood Park, thanks to Friends of Brentwood Park volunteers, and in other Austin greenspaces.

MAY 17 • Twentieth anniversary of the first Violet Crown Festival, held in Brentwood Park. The festival and nonprofit Violet Crown Community Works were created to support neighborhood enhancement projects and events in Brentwood and Crestview, beginning with the mosaic Wall of Welcome, completed in 2008. VCCW continues with a microgrant program (apply here), Oktoberfest, and other projects.

MAY 23 • A new donation of project papers and digitized images from Voices of the Violet Crown was added to the Susan and Rob Burneson Recordings and Papers at the Austin History Center. Friends of Brentwood Park also made a new donation to that group’s collection.

JUNE 17 • Crestview neighbor Kathey Ann Ferland died. Among her many contributions, she was a volunteer with the local Friends of Brentwood Park. View her moving memorial service here.

JUNE 18 • Dia’s Market, on Justin Lane near North Lamar, celebrated its seventh anniversary. Dia’s is on land that once was part of the original Frank Richcreek farm and near where his farmhouse once stood. In 1947, the Richcreek property, from Justin up to Anderson Lane, began to be developed as the Crestview neighborhood.

JULY 11 • The Austin Monitor reported that the City of Austin was starting over with redeveloping the property on the northwest corner of North Lamar and Justin Lane, after years of effort by the city, developers, and the neighborhood-based Ryan Drive Working Group. For updates, the group can be reached on Facebook.

JULY 15 • A mission group from Violet Crown City Church arrived in Guatemala to assist with medical, dental, and construction projects. Other church activities through the year included a back-to-school event in August, a fall festival in October, and other events at the Big Chair, including a visit by Santa in December.

AUGUST • A history of Voices of the Violet Crown, written by Susan Burneson, was published in the Sound Historian, journal of the Texas Oral History Association.

SEPTEMBER 19 • New updates to Voices of the Violet Crown: Remembrances of Kathey Ann Ferland and Kay Nell Swenson Ramsey (scroll down to 2023).

SEPTEMBER 25 • New updates to Voices of the Violet Crown: Just What Is a Violet Crown? and Koenig, McCandless, and McCullough families.

OCTOBER 1 • New updates to Voices of the Violet Crown: Hancock and Wicks families and St. Paul Baptist Church and Cemetery.

OCTOBER 11 • KUT Radio’s ATXplained Live was held at the Paramount Theatre in downtown Austin. It included a segment on Austin’s moniker, “City of the Violet Crown.” The earliest known mention of it in print was in the January 31, 1888, Austin Daily Statesman newspaper, right. Read Just What Is a Violet Crown? to learn more about violet crowns—in Brentwood, Crestview, and beyond. Selected segments of ATXplained Live also appear on the KUT website.

OCTOBER 18 • New update to Voices of the Violet Crown: A Green History of Brentwood & Crestview (see May and September).

OCTOBER 20 • MassMutual Foundation’s “Stronger Communities Are Built Together” was filmed in a home and yard on Dartmouth Avenue in Crestview and other Austin locations. The nearby Crestview Baptist Church provided extra space for the film crew and its trucks and other equipment.

OCTOBER 21 • Oktoberfest, held in Brentwood Park, raised funds for the microgrant program of Violet Crown Community Works • Roots & Wings Festival, featuring the Austin Bike Zoo. was held at the North Village Branch of the Austin Public Library, 2505 Steck Avenue.

OCTOBER 28 • Faith Lutheran Church, 6600 Woodrow Avenue in Brentwood, held its fall festival.

NOVEMBER 4 • It’s My Park Day in Brentwood Park and other Austin greenspaces, the second held in 2023. Next one planned for March 2, 2024.

NOVEMBER 12 • Seventh anniversary of Brentwood Social House, southwest corner of Koenig and Arroyo Seco in Brentwood.

NOVEMBER 16-18 • Nineteenth Annual Women and Fair Trade Festival, held at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin, 4700 Grover Avenue in Brentwood.

THROUGHOUT THE YEAR • Design work continued on a Burnet Road public art project being created by artists Michael Mendoza, Jeff Grauzer, and Courtney Bee Peterson, as part of the city’s Art on the Corridor. Community advisors include Allandale, Brentwood, and Crestview neighbors. The project is expected to be completed in 2024.

EARLIER IN THE ‘HOOD

5 YEARS AGO • The Frisco Shop on Burnet Road closed in July 2018. It was the last of the Night Hawk chain of restaurants. Founder Harry Akin was one of the first Austin restaurateurs to hire minorities and women, in the 1930s, and to desegregate his restaurants and serve black customers before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it mandatory.

10 YEARS AGO • 2013 • The Brentwood Park trail, a project of the Friends of Brentwood Park, was completed. It was coordinated by Emily Wilson, who co-founded FOBP in 2009 with Hedrich Michaelsen.

15 YEARS AGO • The mosaic Wall of Welcome, left, was completed and dedicated at Crestview Shopping Center along Woodrow Avenue in March 2008. The wall was envisioned and created by artist and Brentwood neighbor Jean Graham. The dedication event included the first public showing of the film A Community Mosaic at BriteLites Acting Studio in the shopping center.

30 YEARS AGO • Lucretia and Jonathan Doyer opened a food trailer at Crestview Shopping Center in 1993. Within a few years they opened Little Deli on the southeast corner of the center. Now owned by Tony Villani, it’s still going strong today. (Little Deli mosaic, below, on the Wall of Welcome created by Rob Burneson.)

50 YEARS AGO • The Chief Drive-in was torn down in 1973 to make way for the Commerce Park development, on the southeast corner of North Lamar and Koenig Lane. The Chief was one of four drive-ins in our area.

65 YEARS AGO • In 1958, Crestview neighbor Bill Williamson created the eight-foot-wide metal star, below, that still graces the top of the Capitol Rotunda.

70 YEARS AGO • Services were held for the first time in January 1953 at the new St. Louis King of France Catholic Church, 7601 Burnet Road. Also that year, the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection was established near Burnet Road and Justin Lane. Both still are actively involved in the community.

90 YEARS AGO • 1933 • Kenneth Threadgill opened a gas station and beer joint at today’s 6416 North Lamar. Later owned by Eddie Wilson, former owner of the Armadillo World Headquarters, Threadgill’s closed in 2020. While new development continues on much of the property, the Austin Historic Landmark Commission decided in 2022 that the original Threadgill’s building will be restored and not demolished. The former home of Threadgill and his wife, Mildred, at 4310 Rosedale also is on its way to being designated historic.

130 YEARS AGO • 1893 • Esperanza School, a rural county school before Brentwood and Crestview were established, moved to Burnet Road a few blocks north of Koenig Lane. It closed in 1941.

135 YEARS AGO • First known mention of Austin as the City of the Violet Crown appeared in the January 1888 Austin Daily Statesman newspaper. (See October 11, 2023, above.) Brentwood and Crestview are home to many businesses and groups with “violet crown” in their names. (See “Just What Is a Violet Crown,” updated in September 2023.)

Posted in More

WABAC Machine, Part 11

Copyright 2022 Susan Burneson. All rights reserved. Kindly talk with us before reproducing any website content. (What’s a WABAC Machine? Find out here.)

2022 • HISTORY OF BRENTWOOD, CRESTVIEW, AND MORE . . .

JANUARY

January 29 • A unique Brentwood/Crestview map (left) was given to a neighbor, its fourth owner, through Crestview’s Buy Nothing group. Ryan Eberly made the map and gave it to a neighbor. It’s been passed on twice through the group.

MARCH

March 6 • Neighbor Gladys Gresser died.
• More about Gladys—Some Good Neighbors Remembered (2022).

March 14 • The Allandale Plant Stand, where neighbors can leave and/or take plants, pots, and gardening supplies, was established.

APRIL

April 18 • The Austin Art Commission and Art in Public Places panel approved the artist team of Jeff Grauzer, Courtney Bee Peterson, and Michael Mendoza to create a public art project for the Burnet Road corridor. They were selected from a pool of 36 applications by a jury that included Crestview neighbors Susan Burneson and Anne-Charlotte Patterson. The artist team’s community engagement activities began later in the year (see November, below). “A Lord of the Plains: A Tribute to Quanah Parker” is an earlier public art project by the team.

April 30 • Hyde Park’s Baker School, attended by Brentwood neighbor Al Kirby in the early 1940s, was a featured site on the Preservation Austin annual tour. After Esperanza School on Burnet Road closed in 1941, Baker (built in 1911), Rosedale (1948), and then Brentwood (1951) served our area’s elementary students. Alamo Drafthouse purchased Baker from AISD in 2017 and restored it. In 2020, the Austin Historic Landmark Commission approved historic zoning for Baker School.

MAY

May 3 • Final draft of amendments to the Austin Strategic Mobility Plan published.
• More about Brentwood’s involvement in the process in the BNA newsletter, page 1.

May 5 • Crestview neighbor Ann May “Annie” Haydon Wingfield, 101, died.
• More about Annie—Some Good Neighbors Remembered (2022).

May 20 • Violet Crown Clubhouse named “Best Homegrown Hangout” by the Austin Chronicle.

May 27 • Goodbye School / Hello, Summer Potluck & Picnic in Brentwood Park, sponsored by local nonprofit Violet Crown Community Works. (VCCW’s spring Violet Crown Festival, traditionally the first Saturday in May, was not held this year.)

JUNE

Arrival,” the first chapter of a memoir by artist and Brentwood neighbor Jean Graham, appeared in the Blazing Star Journal. The journal is published by AgArts, an Iowa-based organization that “imagines and promotes healthy food systems through the arts.” (Iowa Landscape, linocut by Jean at age 14, below.)

June 4 • Memorial held in Austin for Jarrod Papen, former popular barber at Crestview Barber Shop. He later moved to San Antonio, where he died unexpectedly on May 14.

June 21 • North Shoal Creek neighbor Tim Keough posted an online remembrance of a favorite neighbor, Mary. He wrote, in part, “I am writing this is because Mary had very few friends, maybe one or two besides me, and no family. And no one to write an obituary or celebrate her life . . . I wanted to share and honor the essence of my own memory and experience of my dear elderly neighbor.”
• More of Tim’s memories of Mary—Some Good Neighbors Remembered (2022).

June 22 • Artist and Skyview neighbor Kathy Ortiz posted a photo of her new mosaic (below), adding, “I got this finished for yesterday’s solstice.”

June 23 • Good news in the Austin American-Statesman about the original Threadgill’s, at 6416 North Lamar. The Austin Historic Landmark Commission denied the developer’s request to tear it down. Kenneth Threadgill opened the “gas station and beer joint” in 1933, and it became an iconic Austin music venue. It later was owned by Eddie Wilson and closed in 2020.  •  According to HLC Chair Terri Myers, the commission “determined that the [building conveys] a good sense of history and has exceptionally significant historic associations. . . . In a city that identifies itself as the live music capital of the world it would not be appropriate . . . to approve the demolition of the place where Janis Joplin got her start, along with the many other local musicians who gave Austin its reputation and justification for that claim.” New construction was allowed on the site, she added, “with the understanding that Threadgill’s be front and center, restored, and treated with the respect it earned as a major incubator for musicians and the nascent music scene in Austin.”  •  In more good news for iconic music venues, the Austin City Council initiated historic zoning for the Broken Spoke, at the other end of Lamar in South Austin. Update: The Broken Spoke’s Texas Historical Marker Dedication was held April 12, 2023.

JULY

July 19 • Brentwood neighbor, photographer, musician (and more) Al Evans died.
• More about Al—Some Good Neighbors Remembered (2022).

AUGUST

August 15 • The newly renovated Brentwood Elementary School reopened. Its new address—6703 Yates Avenue. (See also November 1.)

August 28 • Community Mixer at Episcopal Church of the Resurrection. Featuring news of the November 5 Oktoberbest, sponsored by Violet Crown Community Works, and the Crestview Village development planned for the northwest corner of Justin and Lamar. The event was sponsored by VCCW, the Ryan Drive Working Group, the Office of Council Member Leslie Pool, and Crestview Village.

SEPTEMBER

September 5 • The Brentwood Neighborhood Association Labor Day Parade, a longtime tradition, in Brentwood Park. After no parades in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, this year’s event had “the largest turnout and longest parade in memory.”
• More in the BNA newsletter (page 2).

September 10 • Shayla Fleshman’s original 2004 story about neighborhood icon Domino the Violet Crown Pig (on the mosaic Wall of Welcome, left—tap to enlarge) was updated on the Violet Crown Community Works website. Shayla was a founding VCCW board member and longtime festival volunteer.
• Watch First Night W / Domino & Friends, the 2006 film about Domino.

September 15Barbara Zimmerman, longtime Brentwood neighbor, Violet Crown Community Works board member, and Violet Crown Festival volunteer, died.
• More about Barbara—Some Good Neighbors Remembered (2022).

September 24North ATX Good Neighbor Fest, held at St. Mark United Methodist Church, 601 West Braker Lane. The event offered innovative activities to help neighbors interact and create a strong community, including The Living Room Conversation, Meaningful Mural, Chalkboard Wall, and Postcard Station, as well as international food vendors, kids’ activities, and music.

OCTOBER

October 6Marion Prellop died. She and her husband Herb and sons Michael and Ronnie owned Crestview Minimax IGA for more than six decades, until it closed in 2016. It was replaced by Arlan’s and most recently by Fresh Plus in the Crestview Shopping Center. Herb died February 15, 1991, and their son Michael died October 8, 2019.

October 11 • Preservation Austin announced that Garden Seventeen was one of 11 recipients of PA’s Preservation Merit Awards. Garden Seventeen is just east of Brentwood at 604 Williams Street. As early as the 1920s, the structure was an airplane hangar at another site. After it was moved to its current location, it housed the Rainhart Company, a manufacturing facility, and opened as a retail garden center in June 2020.

October 22St. Louis King of France Catholic Church celebrated its 70th anniversary with a Family Fun Day.

October 26 • KXAN reported that Genuine Joe Coffeehouse is looking for a new home and raising funds to help it relocate. The Anderson Lane property has been sold, and new construction is planned for the site. (As of 2023, Episcopal Church of the Resurrection, on the northeast corner of Burnet and Justin, has offered space to Genuine Joe.)

October 29 • First-ever G.I.F.T. Fest, with activities for “families, gardeners, craft beverage lovers, deep thinkers, music fans, neighborhood folks, and generally friendly people.” G.I.F.T. (Grow. Inspire. Feed. Teach.) is a community center in Crestview, hosted by the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection.

NOVEMBER

The artist team selected for the Burnet Road public art project (see April, above) continued its community outreach, including a survey and conversations with neighbors in Allandale, Brentwood, and Crestview.

Artist and Brentwood neighbor Jean Graham, creator of mosaic murals on Woodrow Avenue and at Brentwood Elementary (below), is one of 128 artists featured in the new book ATX Urban Art by muralist and public artist J Muzacz. The 678-page book focuses on graffiti, street art, murals and mosaics in Austin.

November 1 • Brentwood Elementary School Open House. Murals by local artists Jean Graham (left) and Evan Hildebrandt (below) grace interior walls of the newly renovated school. Evan is a former Brentwood Elementary student. Jean’s mosaic mural was originally installed in 2004 on an exterior wall of the school. Before the school’s renovation, Jean and a small team of others carefully removed the wall and stored it until it could be reinstalled. In addition to the mosaic Wall of Welcome, Jean also created the Domino the Violet Crown Pig puppet, a popular attraction at local events.

November 5 • Fifth Annual Oktoberfest in Brentwood Park, sponsored by Violet Crown Community Works. VCCW announced the first three recipients of its Microgrant Program—Blowcomotion, MACares at McCallum High School, and Webb Middle School student support initiatives.
• Local nonprofits and other organizations can apply for the VCCW Microgrant here.
• More about the event in the BNA newsletter, page 2.

November 13 • The Violet Crown Clubhouse announced it was closing on January 15. It opened in 2019 in the space occupied for 53 years by the Crestview Pharmacy. A Brentwood couple plans to open a coffee shop and natural wine bar there in Spring 2023.

November 14Neighborhood Helpers Free Pantry announced it has moved to an indoor facility. Located near Murchison Middle School in Northwest Hills, it’s “open to everyone, 24/7. Please take anything you need, give what you can.”
• Contact—neighborhoodhelpers21@gmail.com

November 16 • News of a fire at the former Dart Bowl led VVC to discover “new history” about the longtime bowling alley, which closed in 2020. Justin Whitlock Dart Jr. was an owner of the original Burnet Road location. It opened in 1959 and was named for him. At the time, Dart was a student at UT-Austin and an aspiring businessman whose maternal grandfather founded Walgreens. At age 18, Dart contracted polio and was not expected to live. He found the good care and kindness he received at the Seventh Day Adventist Medical University in Los Angeles life changing. He also was inspired by the philosophy of pacifist Mohandas K. Gandhi: “Find your own truth, and then live it.” Dart became a champion for disability rights in college. He became a civil rights activist in the 50s, recognizing that “what the disabled movement was really about was civil rights.” Dart lived in Austin from the late 50s to the early 60s and again from the mid-70s to the mid-80s. His decades of effort on state and national levels were key to the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act, signed in 1990. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998. Dart died in 2002. According to a 2014 article, later Dart Bowl owners also advocated for people with disabilities, providing space for them to enjoy bowling through Special Olympics, Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and Austin Independent School District special needs adaptive physical education programs. Within a few weeks of the Dart Bowl fire in 2022, the building was demolished, with new construction planned for the site.

DECEMBER

Residents of the Austin Retirement and Nursing Center in Crestview received gifts and treats as part of the 2022 Holiday Drive for Nursing Home Seniors. A Crestview neighbor coordinated this year’s event for the ARNC.
• More info—Friends of North Austin Nursing Home Seniors Nextdoor group.

December 3 • The Big Chair (right) outside Violet Crown City Church on Woodrow was all ready for a visit by Santa and some holiday treats!

December 4Swedish Christmas Market and Santa Lucia Concert (below), Gethsemane Lutheran Church, north of Crestview in Georgian Acres.

December 11 • Twentieth anniversary “Waiting for the Light” event, featuring poetry readings and music. All Saints Episcopal Church, 209 West 27th St. in Austin. One of the longtime readers is Allandale neighbor Anne Province.

December 15 • The Austin Chronicle featured “10 Things to Eat in Austin’s International District,” the area along North Lamar, north of Crestview and 183. The list includes Ethiopian, Bengali, Iraqi, Greek, Vietnamese, Arabic, Cuban, Cajun, and Guatemalan dishes.

December 15 • Screening of the film GIFT, “exploring parallels between artists’ work and a gift economy,” Yarborough Branch, Austin Public Library, 2200 Hancock Drive. A discussion following featured members of Buy Nothing groups and Treasure City Thrift, a shop in East Austin.
• Local Buy Nothing groups—Buy Nothing Allandale (North)  •  Buy Nothing Brentwood (North)  •  Buy Nothing Crestview  •  Buy Nothing Rosedale / Allandale (South) / Brentwood (South)

December 16 • Writer Lauren Cook and illustrator Melanie Muenchinger celebrated the publication of their new book, Domino’s Dots, at Brentwood Social House. The book (right) was inspired by the real-life story of Domino, a young, spotted, wild pig that escaped from the petting zoo at the first Violet Crown Festival, May 17, 2003. The rest, as they say, is history.

December 17BookWoman’s 47th anniversary celebration, featuring readings by local authors. The bookstore is east of Brentwood at 5501 North Lamar.

December 22-25Luminarias along Arroyo Seco in Brentwood and Crestview, 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. The project began in 1994 in Brentwood and now includes Crestview, thanks to volunteers who light and extinguish the candles each day.
• More in the BNA newsletter, page 1.

COMING UP IN 2023

Twentieth anniversary of the spring Violet Crown Festival, first held May 17, 2003, a project of Violet Crown Community Works, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit helping build and sustain community in Brentwood and Crestview by supporting neighborhood enhancement projects.

History and community displays in the Community Tent (left), beginning with the first festival, grew into the Voices of the Violet Crown project.

Posted in More

WABAC Machine, Part 10

Copyright 2022 Susan Burneson. All rights reserved. Kindly talk with us before reproducing any website content. (What’s a WABAC Machine? Find out here.)

2021 • COVID, URI . . . AND SO MUCH MORE, OCTOBER–DECEMBER

OCTOBER

October 2 • Neighbors in the Southern Oaks neighborhood of Austin celebrated the completion of a 140-foot mosaic mural—the latest in a long line of extraordinary community art projects in Austin, including our own mosaic Wall of Welcome (below), completed in Crestview in 2008.

October 16 Neighbors shared online the news that Ernie Kuehner, owner of Ernie’s Welding in Brentwood for half a century, had retired. Born Clarence Ernest Kuehner Jr., in the mid-1960s he worked as a mechanic at M. E. Gene Johnson Garage and lived at 1816 W. St. Johns Avenue in Crestview before establishing Ernie’s Welding at 6511 Burnet Lane. The business is known for its good service and its custom designed ornamental rails, gates, fences, and stairs, as well as general welding. In 1993, welders at Ernie’s built elaborately detailed furniture for Mirandolina, a production at ZACH Theatre in Austin, based on designs by local scenic and costume designer Michael B. Raiford. The furniture was “so remarkable,” Austin American-Statesman columnist Michael Barnes wrote at the time, it would be sold at a local gallery after the show closed.

October 24 Ribbon-cutting ceremony for Brentwood Park’s new playscape at the Violet Crown Oktoberfest. The first phase of the project was completed in Spring 2020. Guests at the ribbon cutting included District 7 Council Member Leslie Pool and Austin Parks Foundation CEO Colin Walls. Beginning in 2016, the playscape project was coordinated by a Friends of Brentwood Park subcommittee led by Nancy Mohn Barnard. The playscape is the latest in a long line of park enhancements made possible by the Brentwood Recreation Club, formed in the early 1950s when the park was first being developed, and the Friends of Brentwood Park, founded in 2009 by Hedrich Michaelsen and Emily Wilson. Individual neighbors, including Mae Waggoner and others, also have tended to the park over the years. The Oktoberfest at the park was coordinated by Violet Crown Community Works, a Brentwood/Crestview nonprofit that also coordinates the annual Violet Crown Festival and other events and helps fund neighborhood enhancement projects.

NOVEMBER

November 8 The Alamo Drafthouse announced that the City of Austin had temporarily changed the name of West Anderson Lane to “Wes Anderson Lane,” in honor of the filmmaker, native Texan, and UT graduate. A street sign with the new name was installed near the Alamo Drafthouse Village location for the month of November.

November 10 In response to racist and antisemitic statements posted in Brentwood Park, following similar incidents in other parts of Austin, representatives of local groups and churches released this statement of solidarity:

Cowardly acts like the hateful vandalism of our public park under the cloak of night, have no place in our society, much less our neighborhood.

Like acts of terror, acts of hate are meant to drive fear and division into our lives. The Crestview and Brentwood combined neighborhood is a known place of love and embracement of all people and therefore always a potential target for those who have hate in their hearts.

Luckily, two fathers taking their kids to the park found and removed the vandalism before any serious number of people could be personally impacted by it.

We are united against hate in all forms and are grateful that these crimes were only petty vandalism and not something worse. We pray that law enforcement will be able to swiftly get to the bottom of this.

One way to prevent these ugly acts is to physically spend more time in our beautiful park and we encourage you to do just that.

In the meantime, our neighborhoods will continue to stand together for love and against hate.

—Mike Lavigne, President, Crestview Neighborhood Association
—Kristine Poland, President, Brentwood Neighborhood Association
—Hans Magnusson, President, Allandale Neighborhood Association
—Nancy Mohn Barnard, President, Violet Crown Community Works
—Rev. Billy Tweedie, Vicar, Episcopal Church of the Resurrection
—Rev. Jay Cooper, Violet Crown City Church
Friends of Brentwood Park
Brentwood Anti-Racism Group

November 11 In remembrance of Veterans Day, the Facebook group Dazed and Confused Austin Edition/Pieces of the Past featured a link to “A Salute to Violet Crown Veterans,” a two-part series on the Voices of the Violet Crown website. (Crestview neighbor Jim Bauer, with his wife, Mickey, left, is one of the veterans featured in the series.)

DECEMBER

December 2 • Crestview neighbor Martha King, 63, died after a short illness. She and her longtime partner Beverly lovingly cared for their family and for one of the most creatively landscaped and peaceful, welcoming homes in the neighborhood. Martha was well known for her many professional accomplishments and volunteer contributions throughout Austin.

December 6 Brentwood neighbor Kyle Gillman, 57, died. A week before, I had decided to give a neighbor some Christmas dishes Kyle had given me in 2019 through our Buy Nothing group (which then included Brentwood and Crestview). After BN Crestview administrator Nicole diMucci Potts kindly shared the news about Kyle, members of the group posted memories of him online. When I passed the dishes on, I was able to include something about Kyle and his contributions to our neighborhood, along with what I had written:

I am so sorry to hear that Kyle has passed away. I have so many good memories of interactions with him when we were in the larger BN group. A few years ago he gave me some beautiful Christmas dishes. When I went to pick them up, he carried them to my car for me. What a kind, helpful neighbor. This year, I decided to pass the dishes on to another neighbor. I treasure them but don’t use them often enough. ‘The gift must always move,’ the author Lewis Hyde once wrote, and so it is. Thanks for letting us know.

December 12 • Fire Station 16, at 7000 Reese Lane in Crestview, invited neighborhood kids to sign tiles, part of the mosaic artwork that will be installed at the newly renovated station. It was originally built in 1957. (Here’s a 2012 article about green enhancements at the station.)

December 22-25 Thanks to the dedication of Brentwood and Crestview neighbors, the Arroyo Seco luminarias, an annual tradition that began in 1994, continued again this year.

Posted in More

WABAC Machine, Part 9

Copyright 2022 Susan Burneson. All rights reserved. Kindly talk with us before reproducing any website content. (What’s a WABAC Machine? Find out here.)

2021 • COVID, URI . . . AND SO MUCH MORE, JUNE–SEPTEMBER

JUNE

June 2 • The McCallum High School community honored its seniors at the March of the Knights Senior Parade and Celebration Party. Details were featured on the McCallum High School website at the time.

JULY

July 5 Tenth anniversary of the Voices of the Violet Crown website. Thanks to Diane Larson, editor of the Brentwood Neighborhood Association newsletter, and Chip Harris, editor of the Crestview Neighborhood Association newsletter, for sharing the news. VVC began as history and community displays featured at the Violet Crown Festival and other events beginning in 2003. The project expanded with oral history interviews, films, and this website.

July 16 The Austin Chronicle published a story, “Seven Decades and One Wall Apart: Finding Friendship on Either Side of a Bouldin Creek Duplex.” A similar story, “She’s nearly 100. He’s 2 and lives next door. Here’s how they became best friends,” was published July 28 in The Washington Post. The value of different generations getting to know each other echoes a story Brad Buchholz shared with me. Chester Hilmar Blomquist Sr., well known for doing tilework throughout Austin, once lived on Aggie Lane in Crestview. (He was one of the neighbors here whose ancestors immigrated from Sweden and settled on farms outside Austin.) When he was in his 50s, Chester became ill and was homebound. Through his open bedroom window (before air conditioning), he was able to visit with the neighbors’ young children as they played outside during the day.

AUGUST

August 6 Crestview Neighborhood Association board member Chris “Lippy” Lippincott, 47, died. An Austin American-Statesman article published after his death described him as an Austin political insider and media expert, with decades of experience that made a difference in Austin and beyond. The article also mentioned that “outside of his family, [his] real love was UT baseball.” He was remembered by CNA as “smart, witty, and [with] a sweet heart.” A GoFundMe was set up to help the family.

On August 9, his wife shared this online: “Please hug your loved ones a little harder today, say the words that are in your heart, listen to some good music, and grab the most out of this beautiful day. We always think we have more time, but sometimes it’s just not enough.”

And, sometime before he died, Chris posted this: “Take time to stop and smell your neighbors’ wildflowers. And make sure you get in there nice and close.”

August 20 The Austin Business Journal reported that a new mixed-income community, June West, would be built near the northwest corner of Koenig Lane and Grover Avenue in Brentwood.

August 26 • The Austin City Council moved forward on an agreement to develop the 5.5-acre Ryan Drive property, between Justin Lane and Crestview Station, after recommending the proposal presented by 3423 Holdings, LLC. According to the city, the proposal includes: 344 total housing units, including affordable housing; 3.2 acres of parkland; more than 16,000 square feet of community services and commercial and art space; a transit plaza across from Crestvivew Station; and pedestrian access through the site to the station.

Since early 2018, neighbors on the Ryan Drive Working Group have reviewed site materials, gathered input from other neighbors, and crafted recommendations for redevelopment of the site. The working group has been facilitated by the Crestview Neighborhood Association Executive Committee, with support from the office of Austin City Council Member Leslie Pool.

SEPTEMBER

September 19 • The Violet Crown Clubhouse held an Oktoberfest at Crestview Shopping Center, benefitting G.I.F.T. (Grow. Inspire. Feed. Teach.) on Justin Lane.

September 21 • Brentwood neighbor Lauren Cook reached out to me after reading about the popular neighborhood icon Domino the Violet Crown Pig (see the original Domino, right). Lauren was exploring new ways to teach kids the value of community, including writing a children’s book. Domino has inspired a number of projects bringing local neighbors together. I also shared with Lauren experiences I had as a volunteer in the early years of other community-building projects, Violet Crown Community Works and the Violet Crown Festival, where Domino first appeared, live, in May 2003. Lauren said she was grateful to learn about it all. Our conversations inspired me to share one final story with her and with another neighbor, too, in the spirit of rebuilding a bridge from that long-ago time. It’s my take on The Little Red Hen. You can read it here. Check out Lauren’s book Domino’s Dots here.

NEXT UP . . . OCTOBER-DECEMBER 2021

Posted in More

WABAC Machine, Part 8

Copyright 2022 Susan Burneson. All rights reserved. Kindly talk with us before reproducing any website content. (What’s a WABAC Machine? Find out here.)

2021 • COVID, URI . . . AND SO MUCH MORE, JANUARY–MAY

The COVID-19 pandemic continued into its second year. As the year went on, vaccinations and boosters became available and the number of cases began dropping, and the world began to feel more open and hopeful. Then, around Thanksgiving, news of the highly transmissible Omicron variant of COVID-19 emerged. The number of COVID cases skyrocketed as 2021 came to an end.

Nevertheless, neighbors in Brentwood and Crestview carried on, celebrated, and thrived. (We also remember special neighbors—Chris Lippincott and Kyle Gillman among them—who passed away in 2021, much too soon.) Local schools, churches, businesses, and events operated more normally but not without ongoing challenges. While the spring Violet Crown Festival was cancelled for the second year, the fall National Night Out, two Oktoberfests, and Halloween, and winter luminarias went on as usual, or close to it.

Below are a few other highlights of the year just past, beginning with January through May.

JANUARY

January 3 The local Being Neighborly Facebook group was expanded to include Brentwood and Crestview. Now it’s called Being Neighborly North Central Austin and also includes Wooten, North Shoal Creek, Allandale, and North Austin. Similar groups include Buy Nothing and Waste Nothing—Allandale/Crestview/Shoal Creek/Wooten.

FEBRUARY

Mid-February Winter Storm Uri hit Texas, affecting many neighbors in Brentwood and Crestview.

First, a few statistics: In Austin, more than 6 inches of snow and ice and record-breaking cold (as low as 6 degrees on February 16 and below freezing for 6 days straight), and more than 200,000 households lost power to their homes for varying amounts of time. The storm caused more than $195 billion in damage in Texas, making it the costliest natural disaster in the state’s history. And, at least 246 Texans died as a result of the storm, 28 of them in Travis County, according to a final report released in December 2021 by the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Austin Energy announced in the early morning hours of February 15 that some customers would begin having “rolling blackouts” to help conserve electricity. Like many other Austinites, we woke the next morning to a quiet, chilly house. Our electricity didn’t “roll” once it went off, and we had no idea when it would come back on.

With frigid temperatures outside, the temperature inside our house fell to the mid-40s. We were fortunate to have natural gas, running water, and lots of heavy clothes and blankets. We had a car where we could get warm and charge our cell phones, so we could stay in touch with neighbors and with friends and family outside Austin.

Our local Buy Nothing group provides a popular way for neighbors to offer and to ask for free items and services. During the storm, BN groups became a lifeline for many, as highlighted in a Texas Standard online article, “When Power and Water Failed ‘Buy Nothing’ Groups Helped Fill the Gaps.” One woman posted on our BN group that she woke up in her poorly insulated bedroom with ice crystals on her eyelashes. Another said she was concerned about her frail cat in such a cold house. Neighbors offered them and others warm places to stay. Some offered to charge phones, give rides and run errands in their four-wheel-drive cars, provide hot food and drinks, share words of support and the latest news updates, or simply listen (as my neighbor Jennipher Judge kindly did).

With most businesses closed during the height of the storm, we felt hopeful as we discovered, one-by-one, that a nearby gas station, local small grocery Dia’s Market, comfort-food-hub Tiny Pies, and our favorite large grocery HEB had reopened. The New York Times featured HEB in its February 22 article “Texans Needed Food and Comfort After a Brutal Storm. As Usual, They Found It at H-E-B.”

Our electricity was out for 48 hours. It came back on again without notice very early in the morning. After that, we took a 5-day boil order for our water in stride. And, we were fortunate that the city was able to quickly trim back frozen tree limbs pressing on our newly restored power lines. Other neighbors were without electricity, gas, and/or running water for a much longer time.

A November 21 City of Austin audit concluded that the city was unprepared for the storm and had not followed earlier recommendations for such an event. According to a December 2021 article in Community Impact, ERCOT, the state’s electric grid manager, “acknowledges that power loss is once again a possibility” and that “officials . . . urge personal prep,” if the state is faced with a similar storm.

More than a step ahead of both, during the storm neighbors began sharing lists of what to keep on hand in a similar emergency, based on their experiences. One list posted on the Being Neighborly North Central Austin group continues to be updated.

A few items on my list—a weather radio that worked, extra batteries for flashlight and radio, candles and starters/matches, wool socks, leg warmers, something to melt ice on sidewalks, water jug with spigot, boots, charger bricks and cables, ready-to-eat and easy-to-heat food, drinking water, long underwear, and thermometers for refrigerator and freezer.

A common saying about Texas weather is “Mother Nature says: ‘You can’t squeeze all the weather in the world into one week.’ Texas says: ‘Hold my beer and watch this.'” Within a week of the record-shattering 6-degree cold, in Austin all the snow and ice were long gone and the temperature climbed to 76 degrees.

MARCH

March 6 Arlan’s, the grocery store that replaced Crestview Minimax IGA (right, on the mosaic Wall of Welcome) at the Crestview Shopping Center in February 2016, was sold to Fresh Plus, which now occupies the space there.

March 22 The Historic Landmark Commission released a demolition permit for First Cumberland Presbyterian Church (below, also on the mosaic wall) in Brentwood. The church was founded in downtown Austin in 1846 and moved to its Woodrow Avenue location in 1956. According to an August 2021 Austin Business Journal article the new owner plans to build new attached and detached homes on the 1.5-acre site. (The church was demolished in January 2022.)

APRIL

April 7 • Over the spring, six students in Laura Beck’s fifth-grade class at Brentwood Elementary tackled an ambitious project—to learn more about the history of their school and neighborhood. Laura asked if I could offer any ideas that might help. I shared links to neighborhood history on the Voices of the Violet Crown website and other information I thought might pique their interest. The students took it from there. They researched their neighborhood and school, interviewed students, and created a unique, informative, and inspiring presentation. They shared it first with their class. During the last week of school, then-principal Amber Laroche included their presentation in the weekly announcements shared with all the students.

MAY

While its spring Violet Crown Festival was cancelled this year because of the ongoing pandemic, Violet Crown Community Works held its fourth annual Oktoberfest in Brentwood Park on October 24.

NEXT UP . . . . JUNE-SEPTEMBER 2021

Posted in More

WABAC Machine, Part 7

Copyright 2020 Susan Burneson. All rights reserved. Kindly talk with us before reproducing any website content. (What’s a WABAC Machine? Find out here.)

2020 • A YEAR LIKE NO OTHER

Below is a snapshot of 2020 in the Brentwood/Crestview area of Austin. Treasured neighbors passed away and are fondly remembered; a few of them are mentioned below. By March, everyone’s lives were upended by the COVID-19 pandemic, with hope on the horizon by the end of the year as vaccines began to be distributed. Still, some popular local spots closed permanently. Others remain open or have reopened; links to some of them are below.

Thanks to neighbors, organizations, and businesses for creating and contributing to special events throughout 2020 that gave us opportunities to celebrate together safely.

A very special thanks to parents, teachers, administrators, and all others who help make life as normal as possible for the kids in our neighborhood during this very challenging time.

In Remembrance

May 19: Margie Eichelberger Daugherty, 97. She was the granddaughter of Frank and Julia Richcreek, whose large farm began to be developed as Crestview in 1947. In September 2014, with Susan Burneson and Nancy Chico Butlin, Margie visited the small house at 1405 Justin Lane and confirmed it was the original Richcreek farmhouse. It was built in the early 1930s near the northwest corner of North Lamar Boulevard and Justin Lane on the Richcreek farm. It survived the nearby Capitol Prefabricators fire in July 1947 and was moved to 1405 Justin Lane in November of that year.

July 9: Jon Carl Becker, 46, a popular employee at Arlan’s Market (now Fresh Plus) on Woodrow, died. He also worked at Cap City Comedy Club and Alamo Drafthouse. Violet Crown Clubhouse held a memorial service, and neighbors installed a banner with his photo outside Arlan’s, near a bench where Jon took breaks. His family held a celebration of life for him on August 15 in Manchester, Tennessee.

December 30: Ginny Kalmbach, 85, owner and proprietor of the Little Longhorn Saloon on Burnet Road from 1993 to 2013 (and a bartender there for a decade before that), died.

Open and Serving Our Community

Arlan’s Market, Woodrow Avenue, 512-459-6203.
Brentwood Social House, Koenig Lane.
Crestview Barber Shop, Woodrow Avenue.
Dia’s Market, Justin Lane.
Eldorado Cafe, Anderson Lane.
Enchiladas Y Mas, Anderson Lane.
Lala’s Little NuggetJustin Lane.
Little Deli, Woodrow Avenue.
Little Longhorn Saloon, Burnet Road.
Ricky Wilson Jewelry, Woodrow Avenue.
Stiles Switch BBQ, North Lamar Boulevard.
Texas Folklife Resources, Houston Street.
Top Notch, Burnet Road.
Violet Crown Clubhouse, Woodrow Avenue.

Welcome Reasons to Celebrate

Spring: Installation of a new rope climber, playscape, climbing blocks, sidewalk, and berm was completed at Brentwood Park—thanks to the dedication of volunteers with the Brentwood Playground Improvement Project, a subcommittee of the Friends of Brentwood Park. Still to come: A public celebration and opening of the new playground.

Fall: The Austin Parks Foundation selected Friends of Brentwood Park, established in 2009, as the Adopt-a-Park Team of the Year.

A Longtime Tradition Postponed

May 2: The Violet Crown Festival, coordinated by Violet Crown Community Works since 2003, was cancelled in 2020 (and 2021) due to the pandemic, with plans to return again.

Still Going Strong

Ongoing: Local Buy Nothing Project Facebook groups, providing opportunities to give and to receive free items and to encourage friendly and supportive connections between neighbors. Local groups include: Crestview, Brentwood (North), and Rosedale / Allandale (South) / Brentwood (South). (Or, learn more about Buy Nothing here. The project has groups in neighborhoods around the world.)

Ongoing: Violet Crown City Church continued renovations to its new home, the former Crestview United Methodist Church on Morrow Street, while online services continue. Read more about Crestview Methodist, part of Crestview for more than 65 years, here and here.

October 31: Halloween. Despite the pandemic, kids still dressed up in costumes and happily strolled neighborhood streets, and neighbors still handed out treats. To keep the holiday safe, we and other neighbors set out tables full of goodies in individual bags (along with hand sanitizer) near the street and sat safely distanced in their yards to greet kids as they came by. Other neighbors created long chutes to send treats to trick-or-treaters, and many yards were decorated extra eerily for the occasion. (Photo courtesy of Jennifer Hildebrandt)

November 7-14: The Austin Parks Foundation’s It’s My Park Day, coordinated locally by Friends of Brentwood Park since 2010. Usually just one day twice a year, last fall it was held for a week with volunteers safely distanced.

November 26: St. Louis King of France Catholic Church Social Ministries Annual Feast of Giving. Boxes of canned goods were handed out to neighbors in need, this year by drive-through only. More about the church’s social ministries here.

December 9: Friends of Brentwood Park volunteers planted seeds for a new wildflower bed in the northwest corner of Brentwood Park.

December 22-25: Luminarias along Arroyo Seco, coordinated in 2020 by neighbor Deb Copas in Brentwood (south of Justin Lane) and the Airhart family in Crestview (north of Justin). Link to more about this and other local holiday traditions here.

New in 2020

March 26: The Violet Crown Care Network was established by Brentwood, Crestview, and Allandale neighborhood leaders to provide support to the community during the pandemic.

May: Neighbor Shane Reilly began a project in his yard to place a flag for each Texan who died of Covid-19. When he began, there were 973 deaths. By December 30, 2020, that number had almost tripled to 27,088. (As of March 2021, more than 47,000 Texans had died of Covid-19. Reilly decided to remove the flags from his yard and focus on creating a permanent remembrance in a more public spot.)

May 29: Just north of our area, residents of the North Lamar Mobile Home Park, mostly lower-income, immigrant families who do not speak English, reached a significant milestone for their community. They closed on a $7 million loan to purchase the property. In 2015, residents formed ARNL (Asociación de Residentes de North Lamar), to fight rent increases and eviction. Over the next five years, they continued their efforts to ensure quality of life in the community, with ongoing support from the City of Austin. In late 2019, when residents learned the property soon would be sold, they were ready and purchased it themselves.

May 30: Rock n Stroll, coordinated by the Violet Crown Care Network, featured live music by local musicians in a number of Brentwood and Crestview front yards.

June 24: Spotted along Woodrow Avenue in Brentwood: a sign directing drivers to “Groover Avenue.” Texas musician Doug Sahm wrote a song about Austin called “Groover’s Paradise.” Who knew our neighborhood had such a street? (It should have read “Grover,” of course, but it was on two separate signs. Somebody must have been having fun with the sign-making machine that day.)

Summer: The Brentwood Elementary School mosaic wall, Flying Together, was carefully removed and preserved for a future installation by artist and neighbor Jean Graham, with help from Ralph Castillo, David Johns, and Justin Lott. Jean designed the wall, and she and Brentwood Elementary students and teachers created mosaics for it. The wall, completed in 2004 on the west side of the school, had to be removed by August 31, before demolition and renovation of parts of the school began. A brief history of the mosaic project can be found here, at the bottom of the page. [The mosaic wall was installed in the newly renovated Brentwood Elementary School in 2022.]

Summer: Art-on-the-Corridor, a project of the City of Austin Art in Public Places Program, City of Austin Corridor Program Office, and the Civic Arts team, gathered history of Burnet Road and North Lamar Boulevard, the west and east boundaries of Brentwood and Crestview, from area neighbors. The ultimate goal of the project is public art or cultural spaces created along these and other Austin roadways.

September 30: Neighbor Kat Correa formed a new Facebook group, Haiku Together [now called Your Inspired Words].

December 11 through January 3, 2021: Lil’ Lane of Lights, along Justin Lane near The Episcopal Church of the Resurrection (just east of Burnet Road). Displays were constructed by volunteers with Brentwood Elementary PTA, Brentwood Playground Improvement Project, Brightside Eco School, The Episcopal Church of the Resurrection, Juice Real Estate Group at Compass, Violet Crown Care Network, Violet Crown Clubhouse, Violet Crown Community Works, and others. QR codes at each display gave visitors a chance to donate to the nonprofits involved.

December 19: The Violet Crown Clubhouse sponsored the Buddy the Elf Christmas Carol Sing-a-long Walk, benefitting the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians (HAAM). You also can donate to HAAM here.

Permanently Closed

April 20: Threadgill’s, North Lamar, established in 1933. Eddie Wilson, owner of Threadgill’s for 40 years (and formerly owner of the Armadillo World Headquarters), announced that he planned to retire. Memorabilia from the restaurant was sold at an auction, and a final concert was held there. Plans for demolition and new construction are underway. [In 2022, the City of Austin Historic Landmark Commission decided to preserve part of the building that originally housed Threadgill’s.]

July 17: Dart Bowl, Grover Avenue, a bowling alley and restaurant for 62 years.

July 26: Thunderbird Coffee, Koenig Lane. Bird Bird Biscuits will open at the same location in 2021.

A Landmark in Transition

First Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 6800 Woodrow Avenue. The church was an active part of the Brentwood community for more than 60 years. A Texas Historical Marker was erected there in 2004. The property was first offered for sale in 2019. The church was approved for demolition by the Historic Landmark Commission on March 22, 2021. [As of 2023, new homes are being built on the large property.] The church, first established in 1853 in downtown Austin, celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2003. See a video of a former minister describing the church’s mosaics on the Wall of Welcome here.

More history to come . . . in the future!

(What’s a WABAC Machine? Find out here. Begin reading this history, with Part 1, here.)

Posted in Community, Events, More

A Green History of Brentwood & Crestview

Updated October 18, 2023

Copyright 2019-2023 Susan Burneson. All rights reserved. Kindly talk with us before reproducing any website content.

In recognition of the 10th anniversary of Friends of Brentwood Park, founded by Brentwood and Crestview neighbors in Summer 2009. And, in honor and in memory of all who have helped create and keep our community green and thriving.

Somebody before us planted these trees,
and it’s up to us to do the same,
so there will be trees here for the next generation.
— Emily Wilson, Co-founder, Friends of Brentwood Park

A community is the heart and soul of a city.
— Hedrich Michaelsen, Co-founder, Friends of Brentwood Park

1914 • “On the north stretch rich farming lands that were once illimitable prairies. Westward is a chain of hills which make a beautiful purplish background for the intervening fields in various shades of green and gold.”
— Dr. John Preston, Superintendent, State Asylum (today’s Austin State Hospital, between Guadalupe and Lamar, south of West 45th St.), describing the land to the north of the hospital—where Brentwood and Crestview are today—and to the west, where the Violet Crown Hills still can be seen.

1927 • “The house where I’ve lived since 1967 is on land where I picked cotton when I was 10 years old, in 1927. Daddy would round up a truckload of kids and go out way past the city limits (45th Street at the time). We’d pick cotton on land owned by two old fellers whose names I don’t remember, but I recognized the area when we moved there. Back then, I could pick 150-200 pounds a day.”
— A 90-year-old neighbor who lived on Vallejo and was interviewed in 2007.

1936 • The Frank Pease family, including daughter Mickey, moved to a 14-acre farm between what is now Burnet Lane and Hancock Creek (Arroyo Seco), before there was a Brentwood or Crestview. Frank Pease sold some of the land so that Brentwood Elementary could be built there; it opened in 1951. The family sold the rest in the late 1970s. Where the house once stood (approximately 6503 Burnet Lane) remains the only undeveloped lot on the street, and trees that Mickey planted 80 years ago are still standing.

1947 • Violet Crown Heights, a subdivision of Brentwood, was promoted as having a “beautiful view of the Violet Crown Hills,” west of today’s Mopac, since there were few trees here at the time.

1950Kay Ramsey’s family moved to 1406 Ruth Avenue, one of the first houses in the area. Her father, Gladstone Swenson, planted a large vegetable garden; dahlias, Easter lilies, gladiolas, and bluebonnets; and plum, pear, peach, and pecan trees. Gladstone knew how to graft pecan trees. When he harvested them, he hung a sign outside to let neighbors know he had pecans for sale. Kay and her mother, Erna, left.

March 6, 1950Mae Waggoner and her family moved to their new home on the south side of Justin Lane, where they raised their children and Mae lived until she died in 2018.

1951 • The City of Austin acquired property that once was a cornfield behind the Waggoners’ home, and it became Brentwood Park and Brentwood Elementary School. Neighbors, including the Waggoners, formed the Brentwood Recreation Club to help develop and maintain the park and school grounds. The City of Austin had no money for trees but offered to dig holes for them. The Waggoners dug up sycamores along Onion Creek, and they and other neighbors planted them in the park and helped care for them for many years.

1952 • Early in the year, fifteen members of the Brentwood Recreation Club met to plan a May festival to help raise funds for playground equipment. On March 15, club members and the City of Austin planted 48 trees at Brentwood Park. The club also helped build the stage on the north side of Brentwood Elementary the next year. Longtime neighbors have said a bomb shelter was built beneath the stage, something common during the Cold War and threat of nuclear war in the 1950s and 1960s.

1953 • After they moved into their Crestview home, one of the first houses on their street, Wanda and Emory Muehlbrad wanted trees for their yard. They couldn’t afford to buy them, so they dug up young trees along Shoal Creek and planted them. Later, one tree had to be cut down when they added on to their home, to make room for four of their own children and hundreds of foster children.

1954 • The Brentwood Recreation Club and the school’s PTA held their annual planting of trees at the school and park. Everyone was invited to “Bring your garden tools, and let’s make our school and park one of the most beautiful in town.”

1955 • Billie Herron and her family moved to their Crestview home. She said there were no trees, and from her house you could see the hills to the west (background, right). She planted a magnolia tree in her front yard. For more than 60 years, she cared for the majestic tree.

Early 1960s • A mature oak tree was slated for removal at Crestview Shopping Center on Woodrow Avenue. The tree and the grassy mall where it stood between the two buildings were in the way of a new parking lot being planned there. Maude Yates, wife of Crestview developer Ray Yates, was an avid gardener and longtime member of the Violet Crown Garden Club. She had the large tree moved, and today it provides welcome shade for outdoor seating at Little Deli (below). Maude and Ray (and later Maude’s grandson Craig Cherico) lived for many years at 1313 Richcreek Road, with its sweeping live oak trees.

1985 • We moved to Crestview and met Helen and Neb Parson, our good neighbors for 10 years. When they lived behind us on Morrow, Neb always shared his abundance of tools and farm implements, and he planted a garden behind his garage, where it got the most sun. Helen knew the art of soul-satisfying home cooking, and she canned and preserved the harvest from Neb’s garden. Sometimes one of them would call and say, “Meet me at the fence,” and they’d share just-picked vegetables from the garden, a home-cooked meal, tools for a project, or news of the family or neighborhood. They lived at 1700 Morrow for more than 25 years. In 1995, they moved back to their home state of Arkansas, where Neb grew a garden the size of a football field, and Helen continued caring for her family and neighbors. For years after Helen and Neb moved away, the coral honeysuckle that everywhere else grew up and beyond the fence never filled in where they “met us at the fence” and showed us just how easy it is to be a good neighbor.

Summer 1990 • The Crestview Neighborhood Association began a longtime annual tradition of holding an ice cream social in the shade of the large oak tree (left) near the Little Deli, in Crestview Shopping Center.

February 20, 1993 • Brentwood and Crestview neighbors, through a project coordinated by the Brentwood Neighborhood Association and TreeFolks, planted 259 trees along Hancock Creek (Arroyo Seco), from Koenig Lane north to Justin Lane.

December 1994 • Brentwood neighbors began a luminaria project along the creek, in honor of the trees planted in 1992. Today, the project has expanded into Crestview and continues as an annual holiday event.

1996Madi Ward was nine months old when she and her parents, Angie and Bob Ward, moved to Brentwood. Madi remembers: “There was a tree in our front yard, just about my height. So, the tree and I have grown up together, and I’ve always spent a lot of time climbing it.”

Early 2003 • As we planned the first spring Violet Crown Festival, a project of the nonprofit Violet Crown Community Works, we couldn’t imagine having it anywhere except Brentwood Park, where there are plenty of trees, grassy areas, and space. Jean Graham, who created the mosaic Wall of Welcome, designed the violet crown topped with trees (right). The crown, built by Sandra Miron, was part of the entrance to the festival’s Community Tent, which featured neighborhood history and resources at the first five festivals. (The crown design also can be seen on the mosaic wall, worn by Domino the Pig.) Since 2003, the spring festival has been held at the park or at Brentwood Elementary, except in 2011, when it was held at the Travis County Farmers’ Market between Burnet Road and Burnet Lane and south of Justin Lane, now the Marq on Burnet.

May 6, 2006 • Thunderstorms overnight preceded the fourth spring Violet Crown Festival, held in Brentwood Park. As we scrambled to set everything up and fill in puddles and low, soggy spots in the grass, Mae Waggoner, who lived on Justin Lane north of the park, walked up and offered us bags of mulch and her wagon to carry them from her garage to the park. From the time she and her family moved to Justin Lane in 1950 until she died in 2018, Mae was a regular visitor to Brentwood Park, talking with neighbors and helping care for the trees.

March 26, 2008 • Jean Graham completed the mosaic Wall of Welcome (above), which features this inscription by her:

“Our neighborhood has roots and wings. Our feet are in the cotton [which once was grown here] and our heads are in the violet crown [a natural phenomenon in the western sky at sunset and visible from the neighborhood]. May the spirit live on.”

The wall, at 7100 Woodrow Avenue at Crestview Shopping Center, was dedicated in a community celebration on March 29, 2008. The film A Community Mosaic, by Rob and Susan Burneson, premiered at the event.

April 2008 • At a neighborhood gathering, Bill Williamson, who moved to Crestview in 1952, shared a story about a tree and community spirit. A neighbor’s tree fell and blocked the street, and the city was slow to respond. Bill and others didn’t hesitate to pitch in. “We take care of our own in this neighborhood,” he told city workers who arrived after the street was cleared. We featured Bill in our first Voices of the Violet Crown blog post on July 5, 2011.

May 2008 • Neighbors interested in gardening and other green projects set up an online group (crestview-gardeners@googlegroups.com) to exchange information. They also began holding plant swaps and local garden tours. The Google group was active for many years. Many members have been longtime volunteers with Friends of Brentwood Park and other green activities in our neighborhood.

November 1, 2008 • Dartmouth Avenue neighbors gathered to plant trees, shrubs, and vines around the once-bare Crestview Baptist Church property that faces their street. Cheryl Goveia coordinated the project and continues to care for all that was planted that day. (The photo below was taken in 2014.)

January 12, 2009 • As part of a City of Austin/TreeFolks project, neighbors planted 98 trees along the median on St. Joseph and Morrow in Crestview, coordinated by Kat Correa, and along Northcross Drive in Allandale.

Spring 2009 • Emily Wilson began coordinating Crestview’s application to become a City of Austin Green Neighborhood. In addition to other projects, Emily and Hedrich Michaelsen looked into adopting our local park, one of the activities the city suggested to fulfill the program’s requirements.

Summer 2009Friends of Brentwood Park, “dedicated both to keeping the park maintained and to continuing its development as a community resource,” was founded, after Emily and Hedrich signed an Adopt-A-Park agreement with Austin Parks and Recreation Department. The original Leadership Team included Emily Wilson, Hedrich Michaelsen, Karen Lorenzini, Denman Glober Netherland, Elaine Dill, and Kat Correa.

September 2009 • John and Judy Carlson moved to their newly built home on Princeton Avenue in Crestview in the mid-1950s. When we interviewed them in 2009 for Voices of the Violet Crown, we asked them about the thriving plants that were everywhere. John, who grew up on a farm outside Georgetown, Texas, told us: “That comes from a love of farming. You look at a plant and see what it needs. My dad was a good farmer and taught us everything. He was my hero, and I wanted to follow in his footsteps. We didn’t own the land, though, so there was no way I could return to it after I served in World War II. I was a good farmer, and if I had owned the land I could have made a good living. I knew all the aspects of farming, and I had new ideas about how to do it.”

December 5, 2009 • Friends of Brentwood Park had its first workday in the park. The group has held regular workdays ever since, as part of the Austin Park Foundation’s It’s My Park Day. The citywide volunteer event is now held twice a year, in March and November.

January 3, 2010 • Karen Lorenzini coordinated the planting of young trees along Arroyo Seco north of Justin Lane, in Crestview. She also recruited volunteers to help care for them as they grew.

February 8, 2010 • Crestview officially became a Green Neighborhood. The documentation for the designation included a history of Hancock Creek (Arroyo Seco), which runs through Crestview, Brentwood, Allandale, and Rosedale, where it joins Shoal Creek.

July 24, 2010Native plantings all around North Austin Fire Station #16, 7000 Reese Lane, were coordinated by Emily Wilson, based on a design by Cheryl Goveia and with the assistance of Elaine Dill and other neighbors. The project continued with regular workdays, including a mural painting on November 5, 2016.

October 3, 2010 • Sustainable Neighborhoods of North Central Austin, established in 2007 by Steven Zettner, held the first of its 11 tree plantings in the Brentwood, Crestview, and Allandale neighborhoods. By November 2014, volunteers had planted 170 trees and maintained them until they were established. Locations include Burnet Road, North Lamar, and Woodrow Avenue near McCallum High School.

November 6, 2010 • Friends of Brentwood Park, in conjunction with the Austin Parks Foundation and Austin Parks and Recreation Department, held a historic tree planting of 115 trees in the park (right), including 15 sponsored by neighbors and dedicated in honor or in memory of someone special to them.

February 23, 2011 • A film documenting the people and stories of the November 2010 event, We Planted 115 Trees, by Rob and Susan Burneson, premiered at the Brentwood Neighborhood Association annual meeting. Interview clips with FOBP founders and other neighbors who participated in the event are featured in the film. A copy of the film was donated to the Austin Public Library. Copies of oral history interviews with FOBP founding members Emily Wilson, Hedrich Michaelsen, Karen Lorenzini, Denman Glober Netherland, and Kat Correa were donated to the Austin History Center.

September 2011 • Friends of Brentwood Park completed a neighborhood survey and park master plan. As a result, Kat Correa coordinated planning and fundraising for a new park pavilion, dedicated May 5, 2012. Emily Wilson coordinated planning and fundraising for a walking trail, completed in June 2013, and a new drinking fountain, backstop fencing, and six benches, installed in 2014. (See also November 2016.)

February 9, 2012 • A purple martin house was first installed in the park. Since 2013, caretakers of the purple martin colony have included Emily Wilson, Elaine Dill, Denise Wolff, Diane Gorchs and family, and Denise Dailey, with Sharon Tan, Wendy Harte, Genevieve Baker, Dean Anderson, and Christine Linial.

May 15, 2012 • Former Austin urban forester Walter Passmore became the first city forester for Palo Alto, California. His invaluable role in the FOBP 2010 tree planting is described in a July 2012 article in the Palo Alto Weekly. In the article, FOBP co-founder Emily Wilson is quoted as saying, “It’s Austin’s loss and y’all’s gain. He was our best friend . . . He’s knowledgeable. He’s hard working. He loves trees. And, he likes to do projects.” After his home burned in the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fires in California, he applied and was hired to become State Urban Forester, based in Sacramento, beginning June 2021.

Summer 2012 • Landscaped traffic medians were installed in Crestview, as part of a neighborhood-wide traffic calming project by the City of Austin. Emily Wilson helped coordinate volunteers to maintain them, and today neighbors continue to care for them.

2013 • Karen Lorenzini planted trees along Woodrow Avenue near Crestview Shopping Center (left). As they grow, the trees will provide welcome shade at the sunny bus stop. Dominique Levesque coordinated a tree planting along West St. Johns on the south side of the center.

April 2014 • The City of Austin Community Character in a Box for Crestview includes photographs of local landmarks, including its mature canopy of trees. Richcreek Road (below) was named for the Frank Richcreek family that once owned the farm that became Crestview, beginning in 1947.

2014 • Lynnette Alley asked the City of Austin for permission to care for the median north of St. Johns at Arroyo Seco. The city decided to create the Adopt-a-Median Program, with Lynnette as its first participant. Her project was featured in an Austin American-Statesman article on September 4, 2016. When Lynnette was no longer able to care for the median, a new neighbor (as yet unidentified) began caring for it in 2021.

January 27, 2016 • Friends of Brentwood Park added to its website information about the park’s 15 memorial trees, three benches, and a purple martin house.

Summer 2016 • The Pour House Pub reopened as part of the Burnet Marketplace mixed-use development (now the Marq on Burnet), replacing what once was Travis County Farmers’ Market between Burnet Road and Burnet Lane and south of Justin. The developers preserved a large tree in the northwest corner of the property, which shades outdoor seating at the pub. (The Pour House closed in June 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2021, the JewBoy Sub Shop opened in the space.)

November 2016 • A Friends of Brentwood Park subcommittee, coordinated by Nancy Barnard, began meeting to plan Brentwood Park playground improvements, another result of the Friends of Brentwood Park neighborhood survey and park master plan. (See September 2011, above.) In 2018, the group received a $50,000 grant from the Austin Parks Foundation and continues to raise funds from donations and proceeds of the local Violet Crown Festival and Oktoberfest. In 2019, the subcommittee worked with the Austin Parks and Recreation Department to finalize the first phase of the project.

April 30, 2017 • Crestview neighbor Billie Herron’s majestic magnolia tree, planted in the mid-1950s, unexpectedly fell on a quiet Sunday morning, narrowly missing a house, car, and person working under it. Crestview neighbors quickly gathered to trim and clear limbs and brush, visit with Billie and give her a hug, clip and share remaining flowers (left), and be sure the tree was stabilized. The bulk of it rested on two massive elbow-like limbs until it could be cut down and cleared away later that day and the next.

November 15, 2018 • At the request of Preservation Austin, Voices of the Violet Crown researched the source of the name “Ryan” in Ryan Avenue and Ryan Planting Strip, both located in southeast Crestview. The planting strip, at less than a quarter of an acre, is one of Austin’s tiniest parks. The street and park likely were named for George L. Ryan, who worked in the A. B. Beddow real estate agency at least from 1947 to 1949. A. B. Beddow and Ray Yates began developing Crestview, from Justin Lane north to Anderson Lane, in 1947.

Spring 2019 • Neighbor James Gavin created a film about the history and importance of Brentwood and Crestview’s canopy of trees, which he describes as “the roots of the community.”

Spring 2020 • The first phase of Brentwood Park playground improvements (see November 2016, above) were installed, including a new rope climber, playscape, climbing blocks, and sidewalk. Due to the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the opening and dedication of the playground were delayed.

Fall 2020 • The Austin Parks Foundation selected Friends of Brentwood Park, established in 2009, as the Adopt-a-Park Team of the Year.

November 7-14, 2020: The Austin Parks Foundation’s It’s My Park Day, coordinated locally by Friends of Brentwood Park since 2010. Usually just one day twice a year, in November 2020 it was held for a week so that volunteers could stay safely distanced during the pandemic.

December 9, 2020 Friends of Brentwood Park volunteers planted seeds for a new wildflower bed in the northwest corner of Brentwood Park.

October 24, 2021 • The fourth annual Violet Crown Oktoberfest, held at Brentwood Park, featured a ribbon cutting for the new playscape, a project spearheaded by a Friends of Brentwood Park subcommittee beginning in 2016. The park’s Oktoberfest is coordinated by Violet Crown Community Works. A second neighborhood Oktoberfest, benefitting G.I.F.T. (Grow. Inspire. Feed. Teach.) on Justin Lane, was held September 19 at Violet Crown Clubhouse in the Crestview Shopping Center.

March 5, 2022: Its My Park Day resumed in Brentwood and other Austin parks, after not being held in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic. As reported by Denman Glober on the Friends of Brentwood Park Facebook page, in just a few hours volunteers:

  • Distributed 25 cubic yards of mulch to trees on the Arroyo Seco side of the park
  • Weeded and mulched the sign bed, purple martin bed, and Shelton Memorial bed
  • Collected trash

Genuine Joe provided coffee and Eldorado Cafe provided tacos. Austin Parks Foundation provided resources and tools, and Austin Parks and Recreation provided support and logistical assistance.

May 2023 • A new magnolia tree was planted in the yard of an original Crestview neighbor. Six years before, her 60-year-old magnolia tree had fallen in the same spot (see April 30, 2017, above). Not long after the tree fell, the neighbor moved away but did not sell. The new planting coincided with the neighbor’s great-grandchild moving into the home and making it her own.

September 2023 • Seven new neighbors stepped forward to help lead Friends of Brentwood Park activities, including the It’s My Park Day on November 4. Thanks to longtime FOBP leader Kat Correa for coordinating the call for new volunteers!

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Threadgill & Beck: Friendship & Music

Copyright 2016-2022 Susan Burneson. All rights reserved. Kindly talk with us before reproducing any content you find on the website. Austinites Kenneth Threadgill and Roger Beck shared a deep connection to our neighborhood, as well as a long friendship and dedication to Texas music. In 1933, Threadgill’s opened on the Dallas Highway north of the Austin city limits. Today, that address is 6416 North Lamar in the Brentwood neighborhood. Owner Kenneth Threadgill loved music. He … Read more

Posted in Events, People, Places, Wall of Welcome Stories

Crestview Minimax IGA—63 Years of Local Service

Copyright 2016 Susan Burneson. All rights reserved. Kindly talk with us before reproducing any website content. On February 29, 2016, a new grocery store, Arlan’s, opened in the space that was the longtime home of Crestview Minimax IGA. Minimax (and Crestview Food Mart before it) was owned by the Prellop family—beginning with Herb Prellop, right—and part of Crestview Shopping Center for 63 years. It was the last Minimax IGA store in Austin. In 2014, Minimax … Read more

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