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Chandra
Moira Beal's Splash
Across Texas
Sunken Gardens
1947 Bathhouse
The Environmental Debate
Maintenance
Endangered Barton
Springs salamander
Philosophers' Rock
Pecan tree
Barton
Springs Pool |
< Barton
Springs, page 1
The
Sunken Gardens, enclosed by circular stones, was built between 1935-38
on the south side of the creek by the National Youth Administration. This spring
originally powered a mill, then an ice factory. The state's first fish hatchery
was established at Sunken Gardens. Most of the walls have washed away and are
in need of repair, but the spring still flows. As of this writing, Sunken Gardens
will probably be fenced off to protect the Barton Springs salamanders.
A flood in 1935 left four inches of mud in the Barton Springs bathhouse
and washed away the Lake Austin Dam. Zilker
Park was left under water for days. A new bathhouse was built in 1947
for $180,000. It was designed by Groos and Driscool, the same firm that designed
the Deep Eddy bathhouse. The 1947 bathhouse still stands and has large open-air
dressing rooms and grassy areas.
During World
War II, soldiers wrote to their families about fighting for Barton
Springs. It was an Austin treasure.
Little did they imagine that the land around Barton
Springs would develop rapidly after the war. An environmental debate
over the springs has been raging since
the late 1950s when the Parks and Recreation staff noticed trash and dead animals
in the runoff coming from the Barton Hills subdivision, or what used to be the
Rabb land, and high levels of fecal coliform. In the 1960s, an environmental group
formed and began addressing these concerns with the Parks Department. A plan for
a greenbelt was drawn up but not built, yet the public showed an interest in extending
Zilker Park up Barton Creek. However, the
city didn't respond and valuable recharge areas in the aquifer were rapidly developed.
Robert Mueller was a locker boy and cashier at Barton
Springs. He offered to sell a portion of his land, about forty to fifty acres
on the south side of the creek from the pool up to Campbell's Hole, but the city
declined to buy it. The city passed up several opportunities to buy and protect
the land surrounding Barton Springs,
and today it is an endangered natural resource. |
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Photo courtesy Chandra Moira Beal, 2001 |
Barton
Springs does not use chlorine. Between 1929 and 1962, the pool
was drained twice per week and cleaned with copper sulfate to remove the algae,
which turned some of the rocks blue-green. In 1962, the city stopped using chlorine;
instead workers scrubbed it with giant steel brushes pulled by tractors, then
flushed it with water from a fire hose. It takes forty-five minutes to drain the
pool, and about two hours to refill
it. This practice continues today. The endangered Barton Springs salamander
survived the entire time that copper sulfate was used to clean the pool.
Sheffield has witnessed floods that completely encircled the bathhouse, yet the
vegetation always grew back and helped make the water clear because it kept the
silt from being disturbed by swimmers. It is unlikely that the salamanders are
endangered by chemicals used in Barton
Springs. More likely, fecal coliform running off from development all around
the springs is the culprit. If fecal coliform counts are above 200 colonies per
100 milliliters of water, and visibility is impaired by more than four feet, the
pool closes. The pool also closes as a precaution when there is thunder and lightning,
and if more than one inch of rain has fallen over the Barton Creek watershed within
twenty-four hours. Folks in Dripping
Springs at the headwaters will call ahead to warn us if flooding is imminent.
For more information, see the chapter on Organizations (page 337).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Addendum:
Why is there algae in Barton Springs? Every day about noon, a bloom of blue-green
algae (oscillatoria) rises to the surface of Barton
Springs, turning the crystal clear waters into a murky soup. The City of Austin
has been required by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to change their maintenance
procedures to protect the Barton Springs
Salamander (the salamander was recently added to the Endangered Species List).
Unless the pool's flow reaches at least 54 cubic feet per second, maintenance
workers cannot lower the pool water to clean. Average flow is currently about
30 cfs. The last time workers were allowed to clean the pool was May 18, 1999.
This is a complicated, heated issue. For the full story, see Robert Bryce's recent
article:
http://www.auschron.com/issues/dispatch/2000-04-21/pols_feature7.html
|
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Philosophers'
Rock (Click on photo for plaque)
Photo courtesy Chia-Wei Wang, August 2006 |
The
1950s also saw the development of Philosophers' Rock. Roy Bedicheck, a
naturalist, J.
Frank Dobie, a folklorist, and Walter Prescott Webb, a historian, would gather
on a flat rock near the diving board and talk about an infinite number of things.
John Henry Faulk, Walter Bremond, and Skinny Pryor were known to drop in. A statue
by Santa Fe artist Glenna Goodacre at the main entrance to Barton
Springs honors these men. "If I have to fight for this country, I will not
fight for the flag, or the American 'way of life', or democracy, or private enterprise
or for any other abstractions, which seem cold as kraut to me. But I will fight
to the last ditch for Barton Creek, Boggy Creek, cedar-covered limestone hills,
blazing star and bluebonnets, golden- cheeked warblers and black-capped vireos...
This love of your native land is basic." - Roy Bedicheck.
People often
ask about the pecan tree directly across from the diving board on the west
side of the pool. No one knows exactly but it is probably several hundred years
old. In 1970 people feared it would die so a backup tree was planted behind it.
Support poles were built around the original tree and the trunk gutted and rebuilt.
The older pecan tree finally succumbed but the stump was saved as a lifeguard
throne.
Barton Springs: Page
3 - Barton Springs Pool >next page
Barton
Springs, Page 1
- 2 - 3 |
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|
Photo courtesy Chia-Wei Wang, August 2006 |
Where
to Stay > Austin
Hotels
Copyright
Chandra Moira Beal and La Luna Publishing |
Barton
Springs TE
Editor's Note:
This chapter is the text for pages 27 through 37 of Splash
Accross Texas - courtesy of the book's author, Chandra Moira Beal. Thorough
in research, rich in history, description and recreational information, this engaging
chapter should be read in it's entirety. However, for quick reference for internet
users, we take the liberty of breaking up the chapter by topics ( in sequence
) as follows: About
Barton Springs Sunken
Gardens,1947 Bathhouse, The Environmental DebateMaintenance,
& Endangered Barton Springs salamander Philosopher's
Rock, pecan treeThe
Pool The
Polar Bear Club, Barton Creek Greenbelt, New Trail Barton
Creek Swimming
Holes in Barton CreekZilker
ParkBotanical
Garden, Zilker Zephyr miniature train ride Zilker
Hillside Theatre, Austin Nature Center, McBeth Recreation Center, Beverly Sheffield
Education CenterButler
Brick Company Addendum:
Barton Springs Endangered Salamander
Where to Stay: Austin
Hotels > Book
Your Hotel Here & Save |
2100-2200
Barton Springs Road
Austin, Texas 78704
(512) 476-9044 Pool
(512)
867-3080 Hotline
(512) 478-0905 Park
(512) 477-8672 Botanical Garden
(512) 327-8180 Nature Center
(512) 327-6498 McBeth Recreation Center
(512) 327-6662 TDD
(512) 478-8167 Zephyr Train
(512) 397-1464 Hillside
Theatre
http://www.tec.org/bartonsprings
April, 2001
Copyright Chandra Moira Beal and La Luna Publishing
See Austin,
Texas
Austin
Hotels > Book
Your Hotel Here & Save |
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