austin podcasts

The Buford Tower conceals three secrets. The graceful, six-story Italianate structure poised above Lady Bird Lake is a fire tower without any fires to fight and a bell tower without any real bells.

Or is it? Austinites tend to remember the dish at places such as Raw Deal and Texas Tumbleweed

It’s not obvious to the fresh newcomer, but Austin is a border town. It lies on the boundary between the wet farmlands and forests of the East and the dry ranch lands and scrub hills of the West, and a lot of the city’s culture is derived from that contrast, as well as its position between the Catholic and Lutheran South and the Baptist and Methodist North of Texas.

“We’ve been here before. In 1918, city officials shuttered Austin for almost a month during the worst pandemic in modern times. We look at how folks are responding locally to the coronavirus crisis and what they can learn from the past."

There was a time, not long ago, when all African-American police officers in Austin served on a separate and definitely not equal East Austin squad patrolling East 11th and 12th streets, mostly on foot. Officers Mal Wiley, Leonard Flores and Ernie Hinkle all served during the 1950s and ‘60s when Austin was a very different city. And they tell their engrossing police stories from very different perspectives.