Welcome to South Austin

This video was taken by Wisegeorge on the last day that Beverly's was open.

A high school classmate now owns the Horseshoe. Her dad used to own it. This bar rates right up there with The Broken Spoke, The Continental Club and The Saxon Pub when it comes to South Austin lore. Wisegeorge taped this some time ago. Visit http://www.wisegeorge.blogspot.com to see videos of most bars in Austin. He does a great job.

I don't know if he was from South Austin, but he sure embodied the South Austin way. Going from selling flowers on the corner to the Austin City Council.. Nowhere else but Austin... Keep Austin weird.

Whether it be July 4th or New Year's, the fireworks display on Town Lake (Lady Bird Lake) are awesome.

Forgive the music, but I think we all have done this. Great memory.

Jovita's started as a small restaurant in a house with a garage serving as storage in the back and a small bar in the front. It has changed tremendously in fifteen years as the owners kept pumping profits back into expansion. They did a great job, a little bit at a time, but they have always been improving. Jovita's is in its prime and still getting better, but damn there is a lot of traffic on South First at five o'clock in the afternoon.
http://www.wisegeorge.blogspot.com
http://www.jovitas.com/

Wisegeorge has visited most South Austin Restaurants and Bars. Cool Guy.

She may be almost forgotten now, but Hattie Valdez was one of the most famous madams in Austin history. She had several houses and made millions of dollars.

It is said that when she walked into the Austin National Bank, all the bankers stood up and tried to help her. I figure her little black book contained the names of most of the prominent men in Austin at that time. Of course I have no proof of that.

Her residence was at 1405 E. Riverside Drive. It is on the southeast corner of I-35 and Riverside. Time Insurance Agency has been located there for the past 5 or 6 years.

There are two old homes on the site. I am sure they were beautiful homes in their time. The most interesting thing about these homes is the number of bathrooms. Almost every room has or did have a bathroom. Go figure…..

I have worked at Time Insurance in the past and I have a real good true story. One morning, one of the insurance ladies was writing a policy for this little old man that was probably in his mid 60’s. They were sitting in the dining area in the kitchen. The lady excused herself to go get some other paperwork. This little old man looked up at me and smiled and said, “ I’ve been here before, and it wasn’t no insurance agency”. I had to laugh..

I have another story told to me by an old south Austin wrecker driver. Waldo Harper owned a wrecker company in Austin. His son still owns the company. Waldo was the king of the little racetrack out by the Bergstrom Air Force Base. He almost always won the championship.

The story was told to me this way. Waldo was always looking for sponsorships for his racecar to help pay for the expenses. On day he hit Hattie up for a sponsorship. Hattie had a raspy voice from smoking. She said, “Hell, Waldo, what you put on the car”.

Waldo not missing a beat, said, “That’s easy Hattie, Hattie’s Hardware, the best screws in town.” True story.

I’ll have more to say about Hattie later…..

Below is a google map of Time Insurance Agency....


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