The Way Back
The Way Back: Willie’s Picnic
By Abigail Rosenthal
A crowd gathered for Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July Picnic concert, Austin, 1979. Mention the Fourth of July in Texas, and one person immediately comes to...
The Way Back: The News Underground
By Abigail Rosenthal
Volunteer staff members at The Rag put together an issue of the weekly underground newspaper, circa 1970. In 1966, just two months after the tragic Tower shooting,...
The Way Back: State Assembly
By Chris O'Connell
Alpha Phi Omega members battle the wind as they try to hold on to the Texas flag during the Texas Sesquicentennial celebration on Feb. 28, 1986. In 1986, Texas...
The Way Back: Between Friends
By Chris O'Connell
Texas writers Hart Stilwell (left) and J. Frank Dobie at Joe Small’s barbecue, Austin, Texas, circa 1975. When Russell Lee completed his six-year tenure...
The Way Back: Making Moves
By Chris O'Connell
Offensive lineman John Elmore clears a hole for running back Wayne McGarity against Texas A&M on Dec. 2, 1995. Conference realignment is common around these...
The Way Back: Room with a View
By Chris O'Connell
Since 1937, the UT Tower has watched over an ever-changing campus and the city it calls home. Through wars, civil rights protests, a tragic mass shooting, and...
The Way Back: Indie Darling
By Chris O'Connell
From 1970 until 1997, Inner Sanctum Records thrived on West 24th Street as a place for UT students and Austinites to expand their musical minds at the first—and...
The Way Back: A Walk Along the Creek
By Chris O'Connell
John Matthias Kuehne was a polymath. A professor at UT, he pioneered work on electromagnetism, eventually chairing the physics department. He was tasked with...
The Way Back: Making Austin Weird
By Ben Wright
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....
The Way Back: Stargazers
By Ben Wright
In the 1930s, campus witnessed an unprecedented building boom as the ubiquitous wooden shacks spread out across the Forty Acres were replaced with Spanish renaissance...