DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells this one, and I'm just Duane, along for the ride. Now settle in, because this is a story about a man who ran cattle across the open Texas range and then decided — why not build the grandest hotel the whole Southwest had ever seen? Col.
Jesse L. Driskill was born in 1824, and by the time he moved to Austin in 1869, he had already made himself a cattle king. That title wasn't handed to him.
He earned it the hard way, out on the land. But somewhere along the way, this cattle king looked at Austin and thought the city deserved something extraordinary. So he built it himself.
Construction ran from 1885 into 1886 — brick dressed with limestone, rising up in a way that made people stop in the street and just stare. Three grand entrances. Three.
And one of them — one of those arched doorways — was the largest of its kind in all of Texas. Let that sit with you a moment. All of Texas.
The northeast side carried what was called the Ladies' Entrance, a separate threshold for a different kind of arrival. And over the south arch, keeping watch over everyone who passed beneath? A bust of the Colonel himself — Jesse L.
Driskill — stone-faced and eternal. On the east and west arches, busts of his rancher sons, the next generation of the Driskill name, looking out over Austin like they owned the place. Which, to be fair, they kind of did.
Inside, the furnishings were rich, and Col. Driskill selected every last one of them personally. A man who built at that scale wasn't about to let someone else choose the curtains.
Then he leased the whole magnificent thing out. The hotel opened on Christmas Day, 1886 — and when it did, it was called the finest hotel in the entire Southwest. The Colonel himself died in 1890, just four years after that grand opening.
But the building he put his name on, his face on, his family's faces on — that one's still standing in Austin, brick and limestone and arched doorways and all, holding its ground like a cattle king who never learned to quit.
What the marker says
Built 1885-86 by Col. Jesse L. Driskill (1824-1890), cattle king who moved to Austin in 1869. Brick dressed with limestone. Had three grand entrances -- one the largest arched doorway in Texas. "Ladies' Entrance" was on northeast. Bust of Col. Driskill is over south arch, busts of his rancher sons on east and west. Rich furnishings were selected by Col. Driskill, who leased out his hotel -- Southwest's finest when it opened, Christmas 1886. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1966