The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 96, July 1992 - April, 1993 Page: 217
681 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Selling the Austin Dam
tin and divert the water by canal to Shoal Creek, which flows down
along what was then the western edge of town. Having turned the
wheels of canneries and spinning mills, the water would flow on out
to the waiting fields in the flatlands below. Wooldridge figured that
the project might cost half a million dollars, and recommended that
the city bond itself to that amount, for "any large enterprise looking
to the public good must and ought to be the accomplishment of the
public, not of individuals."4
Alexander Wooldridge had come from Georgia to Texas in 1872, a
rather sickly young man, perhaps attracted by the stories that his father
and sisters told about the place. He came at a good time. The railroad
had just come to Austin, and excitement was in the air. Wooldridge was
blessed with an active and energetic mind that usually got what it set
itself upon; he regained his health and became a lawyer, a banker, and
a patron of education. Instrumental in attaining the site of the state
university for Austin, he also gained an immense influence over its
activities.5
By 1888 he was a wealthy man, but Austin had not fared so well. The
railroad had gone elsewhere. Austin was not exactly a backwater; more
than 14,000 people made their homes there. But it had no reason to
grow. Houston had a port and Dallas its railroad; Austin had only the
muddy Colorado river. Wooldridge's was not the first plan to try and
claim that unsteady, intractable stream for the use of man. He probably
had at hand a study containing similar proposals commissioned by the
office of Mayor John Glen in 1871. This new plan was, however, the
most visionary. It was very much a "town-boosting" program as well.
The figures Wooldridge marshaled to his support concerned revenue
and outlay, not crops. His real interest was the factories that would
process the food and fiber, not the farms that would grow them, and
his plan would have made the local farmers dependent again on Aus-
tin, for water as they once had been for a rail line. Wooldridge, who
claimed that these factories and waterworks were as good as built, were
it not for "the great indifference and lack of enterprise of our people,"
tried to push his project during an emergency. A drought was on, and
the subject of irrigation must have been in the air.6
4Austin Daily Statesman, Jan. 1, 1888.
1Ruth Ann Overbeck, Alexander Penn Wooldridge (Austin: Von Boeckman-Jones Co., 1963),
8, 9, i1, 16-17; David C. Humphrey, Austin. An Illustrated History (Northridge, Calif.: Windsor
Pubhcations, 1985), 75-76.
6Humphrey, Austin: An Illustrated History, 129; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of
the United States- I9o. Population (Washington, D.C : Government Printing Office, 1910), 74;
Thomas U. Taylor, The Austin Dam, University of Texas Bulletin No. 164 (Austin: University
of Texas, 191o), 8-9; Austin Daily Statesman, Jan. I (quotation), 4, 6, Mar. 7, 1988, June 8,
1893.217
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 96, July 1992 - April, 1993, periodical, 1993; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101215/m1/261/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.