AUSTIN, Texas — It’s one of the most distinctive features of Austin: Lady Bird Lake, flowing through the heart of the city. But what you may not realize is that the lake almost didn’t happen.
After all, it’s a mighty Colorado River that flows through town. And for decades in Austin, it was wild and unpredictable. Floods struck the river regularly, washing away trees and turning the riverbanks into mud.
It took some work to tame the Colorado. First, a series of dams were built by the Lower Colorado River Authority. Second was finding a solution to the problem of not generating enough electric power to serve a growing city.
In 1959, City Hall determined that the Seaholm Power Plant on the river could not be expanded to meet new demand. So, they built the Holly Street Power Plant a little farther down the river. To provide cooling water for the Holly Street plant, the City constructed Longhorn Dam. And with that, what was then known as Town Lake was created.
The city had a lake by the 1960s, but it was polluted with trash. The banks of the lake were caked in mud.
The beautification and the lake and the construction of its hike-and-bike trails had to wait until the 1970s, when former Austin Mayor Roy Butler led efforts to beautify Town Lake. He tapped former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson and a committee of volunteers whose hard work created the beautification around the lake we know it today.
The hike-and-bike trails now bear the name of Mayor Butler and his wife, Ann. And in 2011, Austin’s city council changed the name of Town Lake to Lady Bird Lake.