Saving Austin’s History

Last year I had the pleasure of working with the staff from PBS's History Detectives for the upcoming History Detectives Special Investigations: Texas Servant Girl Murders.  The cast and crew came to Austin last summer; they did a number of…

Unidentified albumen print. One morning before dawn in the summer of 1883, a strange persistent cry echoed through a west Austin neighborhood and caught the attention of two women, Sophia Phillips and Sallie Mack, both of whom lived nearby. They…

  Austin native Henry B. Barnhart, was a successful attorney in 1885.  He was appointed Travis County Attorney in 1886.  An 1887 description of Barnhart’s career included the following passage: With uncompromising firmness, he has made successful war upon evil…

The Robinson ResidenceCourtesy DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, Ag2008.0005.   Many people must have been aroused between one and two o'clock by a rapid discharge of fire arms on Rio Grande street, near its intersection with Pecan.  This…

Once there was a killer in nearby Austin who was still at large.  He had chloroformed his victim (rather humanely, I thought) before chopping her head off with an axe.  Fear that ‘dat debblish axe-man’ might strike again, in only…

1885 locations of the servant girl murders now in Google Maps!