DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Hyde Park, right there in Travis County. Now settle in, because this one starts with a sales pitch — and not a modest one. In 1892, Hyde Park was advertised as, and I want to get this exactly right, 'the most fashionable part of the wealthiest and most aristocratic ward in the city.' That is a sentence written by a man who believed in his product.
That man was Monroe M. Shipe, born in 1847, and he had plans. Big ones.
Shipe was president of two outfits at once — the Austin Rapid Transit Railway Co. and the M.K.&T. Land and Town Co. — and he was about to use both of them to build Austin's very first planned suburb. The neighborhood he laid out was bordered by what we now call Guadalupe, 38th, Duval, and 45th streets.
A clean rectangle of ambition on the north side of town. Now, a fashionable suburb needs a way to get there, so Shipe arranged for an electric streetcar line to run all the way from Congress Avenue out to Hyde Park. That's not nothing.
That's a commitment. But he wasn't done. He built a lake.
He built a pavilion for recreation alongside it. And he had the city's first moonlight tower erected at the corner of Speedway and 41st Street — the first one in Austin, standing right there in his neighborhood. He also built the first Hyde Park school, and by 1893, forty homes had gone up.
Forty homes in a brand new neighborhood that a year before had been a dream on paper. The people who moved in were not ordinary company, either. Among the early residents whose homes still remain were Elisabet Ney, a sculptress; Peter Mansbendel, a Swiss woodcarver; and F.T.
Ramsey, a horticulturist. That is an unusual trio of neighbors by any measure. By the early 1900s, those grand Victorian homes were getting some new company — smaller bungalows moving in alongside them.
And quietly, the neighborhood's two great amenities slipped away. The lake was drained. The pavilion was razed.
By the 1930s, Hyde Park was inside Austin's city limits, and by the 1940s, that electric streetcar that Shipe had run all the way from Congress Avenue — the thing that made the suburb possible in the first place — ceased operation. You might think that's where the story ends. But in the 1970s, renewed interest resulted in a revitalization of the neighborhood.
Hyde Park came back. The homes of a sculptress and a woodcarver and a horticulturist are still standing. Monroe Shipe's moonlight tower corner is still a corner.
Turns out, the most fashionable part of the most aristocratic ward had some staying power after all.
What the marker says
Advertised in 1892 as "The most fashionable part of the wealthiest and most aristocratic ward in the city", Hyde Park was Austin's first planned suburb. Encompassing an area bordered by the present streets of Guadalupe, 38th, Duval, and 45th, it was promoted by Monroe M. Shipe (1847-1924), President of the Austin Rapid Transit Railway Co. and the M.K.&T. Land and Town Co. Shipe arranged for an electric streetcar line to run from Congress avenue to Hyde Park. He built a lake and pavilion for recreation and had the city's first moonlight tower erected at the corner of Speedway and 41st Street. He also built the first Hyde Park school and by 1893 forty homes had been built in the neighborhood. Among the area's illustrious early residents, whose homes still remain, were sculptress Elisabet Ney; Swiss woodcarver Peter Mansbendel; and horticulturist F.T. Ramsey. By the early 1900s the large Victorian homes in the neighborhood were being joined by smaller bungalows. The lake was drained and the pavilion was razed. Hyde Park was within the city limits of Austin by the 1930s and the streetcar ceased operation in the 1940s. Renewed interest in the 1970s resulted in revitalization of the neighborhood. (1989)