Report about the City of West Lake Hills

Essay detailing the rise of the city of West Lake Hills — the founding of the Eanes School and the small businesses that helped build the town's infrastructure.

Transcribed text

_The following text was extracted via OCR from the digitized scan held by The Portal to Texas History (UNT Libraries). OCR can introduce errors, especially on handwritten material; the canonical record links to the original scan._

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City of West Lake Hills In 1836 when Austin was chosen as Republic of Texas, no one lived in the Colorado River. Battle veteran Thomas was originally from Virginia, received

the capital of the new hills just across the Jefferson Chambers, who the hills as a land

During the Civil War, Union sympathizers used the hills as a hideout (Travis County voted against secession). Pro-Union men smuggled rifles and ammunition from Mexico, stowed them away in caves, and tried to block efforts to draft men into the Confederate Army.2 After the war, a few settlers gradually moved into the hills. The land was too rugged for farming, so most families raised cattle, sheep and goats. They made lye soap, cooked on wood stoves, and used coal oil for lighting. In 1872 Robert Eanes and George Norvell built a log schoolhouse near the present Eanes School.3 They furnished it with split-log benches. Children wrote on slates using native limestone as chalk. The schoolhouse was also used for church services, conducted by circuit-riding preachers, until a stone church was built in 1928. As the years went by, a community grew up around the schoolhouse.

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The first Austin Dam (site of the present Tom Miller Dam) was built across the Colorado River in 1893. The dam broke in the flood of 1900 but was rebuilt in 1913.4 Before these dams were built, Austin folks forded the river at Taylor's Slough, driving their buggies and wagons into the hills so they could chop firewood.5 The newly created Lake McDonald (now Lake Austin) prevented anyone from fording the river. Except for a road to the southwest that went to Bee Cave, the hills were virtually cut off from civilization. These isolated hills became home to cedar choppers. Winston Bode called them that "proud, independent, robust tribe of transplanted Southerners who came to flat-cut cedar and burn charcoal."6 They slow-burned cedar into charcoal, which they sold to general stores on 6th Street and other places. Like other mountain people, they worked hard, had little schooling, intermarried, bore several children, brewed corn whiskey, and danced barefoot to fiddle music. Except for coming to town with their charcoal and maybe drinking on Saturday night, the cedar choppers stayed to themselves. Austin folks used to say that you didn't go into the shills unless you knew someone, and it wasn't safe to travel on Bee Caves Road after dark. One man who dared to venture into the hills was Emmett Shelton, Sr.7 An attorney, newly graduated from law school in 1928, he walked to.the hilltop where the County Line Restaurant now stands. He bought the hilltop for $500. In subsequent years he bought more land, sometimes for as low as $4.50 or $10 an acre. When he wasn't running his trial practice with brother Polk or dickering in politics (he ran for the Austin City

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Council in the 1930s), he was in the County Clerk's office, tracking down titles to land. "Most of the people who owned land in the hills didn't live here," Shelton said. "Usually they had inherited it from someone. Most didn't know where the property lines were or how much was there." As he wandered through the brush, checking property lines, he made friends with cedar choppers and later defended many of them in their scrapes with the law. During the 1920s and 1930s, the hills were a haven for bootlegging. Cedar choppers set up stills on the creeks and guarded them with firearms. More than one federal agent was killed trying to come up on a still by surprise. According to Emmett Shelton, Sr., "There was more commercial activity in West Lake Hills then than there is now." A favorite spot for Austin folks who wanted to drink and gamble was the Cedar Crest Night Club, site of the present County Line Restaurant. When it opened, someone asked owner Mervin Ash, "How are you going to keep these hillbillies from coming in and taking you over?" Without batting an eye, he replied, "We'll just put napkins and tablecloths on the tables." As the country worked its way out of the Depression, the hills began to enjoy economic growth. In 1937 B.B. "Pap" Beard started selling hamburgers and tamales in a log-cabin store on Bee Caves Road.8 His was the first business establishment in the hills. Later he added a gasoline station. Also in 1937 a new two-room schoolhouse was built to educate the growing numbers of children whose families had moved to the area.9

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After World War II, Shelton urged his friend Austin Mayor Tom Miller to build a bridge across the Colorado by the newly rehabilitated dam that would carry Miller's name. When the proposal was brought before the city council, Shelton promised: "If you build this bridge, I won't run for city council His strategy must have worked, because the council issued the bonds and built the low-water bridge in 1948. The bridge opened a second traffic artery into hills, connecting Lake Austin Boulevard with Red Bud Trail. Shelton began selling land in earnest, usually asking $1,500 for 2.5 acres. On Saturdays, he rented equipment from the county and bulldozed roads, often following the horse trails and wagon paths used by the cedar choppers. In the back of his mind was a dream for a prime residential community. Electricity, telephones, and other utilities were slow in coming. At first land owners dug their own water wells or formed private water companies, and each house was built with its own septic tank. In 1949 Eanes School, which had started a nine-month school term only four years earlier, merged with Brewton Springs School, located 10 miles west on Bee Caves Road. By 1950 Eanes had 80 students in grades 1 through 6 (older students went to Austin High School). The same year Eanes bought its first school bus.'' In 1953 Shelton and his neighbors incorporated as the village of West Lake Hills. He drew a map by hand, and citizens voted 73-0 in favor of the proposition.12 In 1958, the village

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became a city with broader municipal powers, especially in matters of zoning to protect the environment. The city's founding documents states: "It is the powerful and heartfelt wish of the residents of West Lake HIlls that they may be permitted to live their lives with the least interferences from any outside influences that might become annoying or burdensome...." The city fathers intended that residents remain as free as possible of government, providing their own water, sewage, garbage pickup, and other conveniences. The idea was, "If you need something, you do it yourself," said Janet Poage,l who moved to the city in 1966 and chaired the Zoning and Planning Commission. For several years, residents voluntarily contributed money--in lieu of taxes--to pay minimal city expenses. And the early mayors ran city business from their homes, storing records in spare bedroom closets. Protection of the environment was essential. The first mayor, Dr. Dan Grieder (dean of a downtown business college), told a local reporter:15 "We want to keep it the way it's been," forbidding any activity that would "disfigure, destroy or mar the glorious beauty of our wooded hills and valleys." During the early years, citizens gathered several times a year for town meetings. They assembled at Eanes School over a covered dish supper of fried chicken and potato salad. Then they talked about who to nominate for city offices, sometimes cajoling a neighbor to serve. Though congenial for the most part, some meetings became spirited. According to Janet Poage,16 "People just stood up and said what they thought. It was hilarious. One fellow even threatened to shoot the mayor."

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In 1958, the community voted overwhelmingly for an official independent school district,17 named after the family who had built the first school in the area. The same year Water District 10 was formed, causing a spurt in growth. People bought land because of the city views, rural atmosphere, and the privacy, but also because comparable size lots in Austin were much more expensive. Becoming concerned about encroaching development, the City of West Lake Hills in 1958 annexed a narrow strip of land along Lake Austin and around an unincorporated area, circling back to the city proper.18 The idea was to create a buffer zone, protecting the Lake Austin peninsula from uncontrolled development. During the next few years, the city passed ordinances governing zoning, subdivisions, construction and sanitation. Builders had to adhere to standards for size and height of buildings, set-backs, impervious cover, off-street parking, signs, and mailboxes. Roads were left without curbs or gutters so rain could run off naturally, with the least possible disturbance to the environment. Except for Bee Cave Road and Westlake Drive, roads were repaired by private contractors. Roads were famous for their disrepair. According to some residents, "The more chug holes the better--they keep down the through traffic." In 1970 the city, under Mayor George Putnam, passed a 1- acre minimum lot size. "This set a standard for the area," Henrietta Jacobsen,19 a former mayor, said later. "Now 1-acre minimum has become synonymous with high-class residential."

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What some people viewed as protective, others viewed as overly restrictive. In 1970, 13 property owners in the city and buffer zone filed suit, complaining that the buffer zone left them without adequate water supply, sewage systems, and proper law enforcement, and further deprived them of their right to develop the land.20 The plaintiffs were later joined in the suit by the City of Austin. In July 1970 the Texas Court of Civil Appeals ruled that the City of West Lake Hills was illegal. The court criticized the city for levying no taxes, not maintaining streets and not furnishing power, garbage collection and other services. West Lake Hills citizens, vowing to take the matter to the Supreme Court if necessary, fought back, digging into their own pockets to pay legal fees and court costs. Mayor Eddie Wooley said the buffer zone was necessary to "protect our environment and the way we live." In April 1971, the Texas Supreme Court upheld the original incorporation of the City but knocked down the annexation of the buffer zone.21 The court pushed back the city's boundaries to Bee Creek. During the 1970s, West Lake Hills and the larger area known as "the Westbank" grew phenomenally. Population within a 3-mile radius of the intersection of Loop 360 and Bee Cave Road grew from 5,800 in 1970 to more than 12,000 in 1980.22 The Eanes School District, which had added a high school in 1967, had earned a reputation for quality education. Forced busing in Austin in the mid-1970s brought even more people seeking Eanes schools. A more significant factor, however, was the overall

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thrust of Austin's growth. The westward expansion of MoPac expressway, the construction of Loop 360, and the opening of Barton Creek Mall (which brought utilities to a vast new area in Austin's extraterritorial jurisdiction) brought thousands of bulldozers, contractors and people. Janet Poage, Nancy Bowman, and other area residents became convinced that a portion of the area's undeveloped land was "the most pristine area in the Hill Country." They began negotiating with several government bodies, private groups and individuals to set aside acreage as a wilderness. The result was Wild Basin Wilderness, which she called "a symbol of Texans' love for their In 1980 the Lake Austin Hill Country Neighborhood Association, whose members included West Lake Hills residents, asked Austin to release 3,000 acres in the rapidly developing Lake Austin peninsula and return it to the jurisdiction of West Lake Hills.24 Austin kept the acreage in its extraterritorial jusidiction, but it passed a subdivision ordinance requiring 1- acre minimum lots with 125-foot frontage. In 1983, the City government moved out of rented offices on Bee Cave Road and into the new municipal building on Westlake Drive. The building, constructed of native white stone with wood decking, lay nestled among the trees on a two-acre lot. "Shoot, when we first put it up, people would drive by and say, 'Is this house for sale?"' said City Administrator Dick In 1985 West Lake Hills forms a 2,800-acre enclave in a fast-growing urban area. The city is bounded rougly by Bee Cave

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Road on the south, Bee Creek on the north, and a sister city, Rollingwood, on the southeast. Residents of West Lake Hills enjoy the woodsy, rural atmosphere envisioned by city fathers 30 years earlier. Homes sit against hillsides covered with cedar and oak. Occasionally deer amble out of the brush to graze in grassy clearings. Road runners and rabbits scurry across the roads during the day, and raccoons clamber on decks at night. Once populated by ranchers and cedar choppers, West Lake Hills is home to University of Texas professors, state officials, bankers, artists, professionals, and entrepreneurs. According to the 1980 census, the median household income is $32,203 compared to Austin's $14,613.26 "People here like being tucked away in the woods," said realtor Becky Bell. "They are happy, well-educated and successful--and they don't need to flaunt it."27

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1. Dorothy McRae Depwe, Eanes: A History of the School and Community, Austin: The Whitley Company: 1976, p. 3. 2. Dorothy McRae Depwe, op. cit. 3. Dorothy McRae Depwe, op. cit., p. 11. 4. Katherine Hart, Austin & Travis County: A Pictorial History, 1839-1939, Austin, Encino Press, 1975, pp. 90-91, 95, and 117. 5. Emmett Shelton, Sr., "Peninsula History," cassette tape (no 6. Winston Bode, "The Last of the Charcoal Burners," The Texas Observer, Aug. 14, 1959. 7. Emmett Shelton, Sr., personal interview, August 1983. 8. Dorothy McRae Depwe, op. cit., p. 34. 9. Dorothy McRae Depwe, op. cit., p. 32. 10. Emmett Shelton, Sr., personal interview, August 1983. 11. Dorothy McRae Depwe, op. cit., pp. 34-35. 12. Emmett Shelton, Sr., personal interview, August 1983. 13. Statement of Rules, Regulations and Policies, City of West Lake Hills, Jan. 25, 1954. 14. Janet Poage, personal interview, August 1983. 15. Austin American-Statesman, August 1953, newsclippings on file at Austin History Center. 16. Janet Poage, op.cit. 17. Dorothy McRae Depwe, op. cit., p. 36. 18. Austin American-Statesman, July 1970, newsclippings on file at Austin History Center.

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19. Henrietta Jacobsen, personal interview, August 1983. 20. Austin American-Statesman, July 1970, newsclippings on file at Austin History Center. 21. Ibid., April 28, 1971. 22. Barbara Langharn, "Westbank enclave retains rustic style," Austin Business Journal, Nov. 7, 1983, p. 1. 23. Videotape filmed by WFAA-TV, Dallas, 1983, and copied for The Westlake Picayune, West Lake Hills. 24. Austin American-Statesman, Jan. 17, 1980. 25. Peggy Vlerebome, "West Lake Hills guards unruffled air of success," Austin American-Statesman, Onward, June 12, 1984, p. 26. "Census Report No. 9," City of Austin, December 1982, p. 2. 27. Becky Bell, telephone interview, August 1983.

Original record: metapth1065538 on the Portal to Texas History.