The Way Back: Making Austin Weird
In 1963, UT student Lloyd Birdwell, BA ’64, MA ’66, founded Eeyore’s Birthday Party to honor the grumpy donkey from A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh stories....
Author Archive:
The Way Back: College On a Hill
In 1838, the fledgling town of Austin—then called Waterloo—was selected as the future site for both the Capitol and The University of Texas. As such, the...
The Way Back: Mama Duren
In 1956, the first cohort of Black students, now known as The Precursors, enrolled at UT. While an ostensible sign of progress, the cohort’s experience on...
The Way Back: Temperature Rising
By 1918, the Forty Acres had been turned into a quasi-military installation as World War I raged on. But that was the least of students’ worries; the so-called...
The Way Back: Campus in Miniature
Each edition of UT’s Cactus yearbook has its own look and feel as the editors navigate a delicate balance: distinguishing it from its predecessors but also maintaining...
The Way Back: Counter-Culture on the Drag
Before World War II, The Drag was a drag. But between 1945 and 1946, the student population grew from 7,000 to 17,000, providing a much-needed boon to the street’s...
The Way Back: The Big Boom
The president of the United States once set off explosives on campus, using a remote control from the back of a passenger train. No really, he did. In 1936, while...
The Way Back: Hay Day
The holidays in Austin are hardly chilly. In fact, between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, you’re more likely to get a tan than you are to catch a snowflake on...
The Way Back: DKR and LBJ
When Texas met Mississippi in the 1962 Cotton Bowl, it was a highly anticipated matchup. Both teams had gone 9-1 during the regular season, and the Longhorns...
The Way Back: Moon Unit
A small chunk of the moon resides on the Forty Acres. Between 1969 and 1972, American astronauts brought back 842 pounds of similar specimens of moon rock....
