Austin Found Podcast

Any alert observer passing along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard near Chestnut Avenue in East Austin inevitably notices two revolutionary sites. One is the David Chapel Missionary Baptist Church with its dramatically escalating roofline, color-block windows and soaring modernist steeple. The other is the radically geometrical and cantilevered residence located a bit to the east of the landmark church at MLK and Maple Avenue known as the Phillips House.

John Saunders Chase Jr. — the first licensed Black architect in Texas and, in 1952, the first African American to graduate from University of Texas’ School of Architecture — designed all three striking buildings.

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The story of Deaf Smith, a war hero and the fight to preserve the Texas School for the Deaf, the oldest continuously operated school in the state.

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You've heard the stories of the legendary Armadillo, where hippies and rednecks co-mingled... oh, and ballet.

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German settlers in Austin formed a traditional singing group as early as 1852. The tradition continues today at the Saengerrunde Hall at 1607 San Jacinto Street, adjacent to Scholtz Garden.

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Known for comfort food such as beef tips, chicken-fried stea, chicken and dumplings, and icebox pie, the Frisco Shop was part of the Night Hawk chain, which Harry Akin, mayor of Austin from 1967 to 1969, started in 1932.

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During the past 30 years, TreeFolks has set down more than 2.8 million trees in the Austin area. Tree Folks now works with a 1.2 Million dollar annual budget planting trees around Austin

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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.

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Over the course of more than a century, Austinites have known Benson as many things. Among them: adventurous youth, World War II veteran, textbook publisher, thoroughbred breeder and polished social dancer.

Yet it has been his legendary golf game that has followed Benson through much of his life.

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Some citizens are honored merely for reaching the centennial mark. The Bastrop-born-and-reared Shudde Bess Bryson Fath has been spearheading causes for more than half her life, even before the fire station plan sparked her public outrage.

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Little-known fact: One of the earliest space travelers from Earth was an Austin Native. Sam the Space Monkey was born in 1957 at the Balcones Research Center. 

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