Walking Austin's Neon Wilderness

Millennia before journalist and Commissioner of Indian Affairs George Bonnell was born, the Comanche traversed this Balcones Fault escarpment and observed the Colorado River valley below. After climbing this gentle peak, we’ll descend through the bungalow-lined streets of Tarrytown, which until just over a century ago had been a single 365-acre estate belonging to Governor Elisha Pease's family.

Our 6.2 mile walk continues south past a lime kiln in Reed Park. Built in 1871 by the crew of Scottish immigrant Peter Taylor, the operation grew to at least 10 workers and 20 horses and became a major supplier for 19th-century Austin. Our walk concludes at Mayfield-Gutsch, a park with cottage and garden walls likely held together by lime from the nearby kiln. The park is the result of four decades of labor primarily by Mary Gutsch, her husband Milton, and their live-in gardener Esteban "Steve" Arredondo, who ranged the Lake Austin shoreline for native mountain laurel and redbud to transplant here. To this day, the park’s natural history is anchored by peacocks gifted to the Gautsch family nearly a century ago.

LOGISTICS:

• 8 AM start, on our Summer schedule
• We’ll meet in the parking lot at Mayfield Cottage and Gardens at 3505 W. 35th. The small lot can fill up fast, but there’s typically an abundance of street parking in the surrounding area (see SpotAngels)
• The group typically finds a lunch spot immediately after the walk, but this is optional
• Official walk map

To keep cool for most of our 7.6 mile walk, we’ll follow a fair bit of greenbelt including Boggy Creek, the riverside trail, and the recently opened Wishbone Bridge crossing Lady Bird Lake. Looping through industrial Govalle, we’ll pass the Dillon Bus Depot. This building, which operated as a real-life charter bus and limo warehouse at the time of filming, plays a role throughout the series including the backdrop where fullback Luke Cafferty boards a bus for the military in the series finale.

LOGISTICS:

• 8 AM start, on our summer schedule
• We’ll meet at the southern end of the parking lot by the start of the Lady Bird Hike and Bike Trail. There should be plenty of parking (see SpotAngels for street parking in the very unlikely event the lot is full).
• Official walk map

Long before the city acquired Stephenson Nature Preserve for outdoor education and parkland, the cedar-and-mesquite tract marked the northern edge of Kincheonville, one of Austin's least-remembered freedmen's communities. Our 6.2-mile walk first traces the area settled in 1865 by Thomas Kincheon, a formerly enslaved man from Mississippi. In the decades leading up to Austin’s 1928 city plan which cut off utilities and displaced Black residents to segregated East Austin, the area sustained a diverse mix of Black, Hispanic, and Anglo families. As noted in a Texas Historical Commission marker by Paisano and Brodie, Kincheon’s children are remembered in the names of area streets: Blumie, Elijah, and Minnie.

The residential portion of our walk continues past ranch-style houses in formerly unincorporated farmland in the Brodie Lane, Woodstone Village, and Maple Run neighborhoods which the city annexed mostly in the 1970s. We’ll cool off in the shady Preserve, passing oak groves and old stone fences along a “spaghetti factory” of trails reputedly carved out by motorcycles during a civilizationally wilder era.

LOGISTICS:

• 8 AM start, on our Summer schedule
• We’ll meet by the small parking lot in Longview Neighborhood Park at 7609 Longview Rd. It’s a tiny lot, but there’s an abundance of nearby street parking
• As always, we’ll look for a brunch/lunch place for an optional post-walk meal
• Official walk map