Becker School

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Becker School in Travis County. Now settle in, because this one starts — like so many good Texas stories — with a man who knew how to feed people. Herman Becker, born in 1857, ran a successful downtown café.

That's where the story begins. Not with a schoolyard or a chalkboard, but with a café and a man who apparently had a knack for building things that lasted. Herman passed in 1933, but not before he'd done something that would echo well past his lifetime — back in 1891, he'd bought a piece of the historic Bouldin homestead in south Austin.

That land was sitting there, quiet, waiting to become something. And it did. Herman's son, H.E.

Becker, and his son-in-law P.A. Wilde — the two of them running the Becker Lumber Company together — they looked at that Bouldin land in 1935 and decided three acres of it ought to belong to the Austin Independent School District. A gift.

A school site. Now, you hand three acres to a school district, they're going to build something, and sure enough, the firm of Giesecke and Harris designed a building that opened its doors in October of 1936. But here's where it gets interesting — three years later, they added a new wing, and that wing more than doubled the school's size.

More than doubled. Whatever they'd imagined in 1936, by 1939 they needed twice as much of it. What came out of all that building is something worth slowing down to look at.

Art Deco sections with brick cladding, limestone columns, pilasters, belt courses, decorative insets — contrasting materials all working together to lift simple geometric forms right off that south Austin landscape. The campus kept growing after that, later additions joining the original over the years. From a café owner's land purchase to a lumber company's donation to a school that's still standing — that's a family that knew how to leave something behind.

What the marker says

Herman Becker (1857-1933) operated a successful downtown café, and he bought part of the historic Bouldin homestead in south Austin in 1891. His son H.E. Becker and son-in-law P.A. Wilde, proprietors of the Becker Lumber Company, donated three acres of Bouldin land to the Austin Independent School District in 1935 for a new school site. The firm of Giesecke and Harris designed the building, which opened in October 1936. A new wing added three years later more than doubled the school's size. The Art Deco style sections feature brick cladding with limestone columns, pilasters, belt courses and decorative insets, with contrasting materials emphasizing simple geometric forms. The campus includes several later additions. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2007