Red Bud Isle, also known as Red Bud Park or Town Lake Metropolitan Park, sits in the Colorado River just downstream of Tom Miller Dam near the center of Austin, Tx. We know this park, because it is an official off-leash dog park and we take our dog there at least once a week. It's about six and a half acres of brush, rocks, crushed-granite trails and shallow beaches. Here's a link to a Google Maps view.

The park has an odd, almost unique history. You see, up until 1900 –April 7, 1900 to be precise– there was no Red Bud Isle. But first, we have to back up 10 years to 1890. In this year, the citizens of Austin voted to build a dam across the Colorado River just upstream from downtown. The Colorado was prone to flooding and a dam was needed. A hydroelectric station was part of the dam and it would supply a growing city of Austin with cheap electricity. The dam also backed up a thirty-mile lake behind the dam, called Lake McDonald.

The lake turned out to be extremely popular. A side wheeler steam boat called the Ben Hur started operating on the lake; taking up to 1500 Austinites at a time from a landing near the dam to a popular dance hall at the other end of the lake. It's easy to imagine those gay-nineties ladies and gentlemen steaming up the lake in the twilight, with bands playing on deck and small boats darting around the steamer. Apparently, people came from all over Central Texas to ride the Ben Hur, the only riverboat for hundreds of miles. The popular press often called it the "Great Dam."

April, 1900, was a rainy month. Huge storms dropped many inches (no one knows how many, those were primitive times) upstream of Austin and the dam started to fill. By the 7th of April, water was coming over the dam and rumors were spreading that the dam was going to fail. At 11:30am, the center part of the dam gave way and a huge wave of water poured over the lower parts of downtown Austin. As the water rushed through, it ate away more and more of the dam until little was left. Five men and two young boys died in the "dynamo" room of the power plant when it was flooded and dozens more were swept away from the banks.

The rubble of the dam –large granite blocks, rubble infill and chunks of concrete– formed Red Bud Isle in a matter of hours. Over the years, silt, trash dumping, construction waste and lots of new greenery would fill in the island and make it seem like it had always been there. Click any of the pictures for a larger version.

Granite blocks around Red Bud Isle parking lot

The flood of 1900 was catastrophic for the city of Austin. The Great Dam was the only source of both electricity and drinking water in the whole city. Immediately after the flood, a steam generator was leased and moved into town to provide electricity. Wells and springs that had been disused once the city provided running water picked up the slack until the city could get water into the system once again.

Notice the big granite blocks that ring the parking lot today – obviously, that's what the dam was made of. For most of the twentieth century, Red Bud Isle was a boon to fishermen and not much else. Huge cypress trees had grown up on its banks and most of the island was covered with red bud trees and dense undergrowth. In 1949, the state of Texas gave the island to the City of Austin. Now, I read this in old newspaper articles at the Austin History Center (where I researched most of this), but I have no idea how it got to be state property in the first place. My guess is that a Texas law that says navigable rivers belong to the state was involved. When the island was formed it was in a navigable river, so it belonged to the state. But that's just a guess. These days, when you walk around Red Bud Isle, you see lots of those original granite blocks.

Sheet of the original dam still visible

There was lots of speculation about the failure of the dam. The rumors and finger-pointing were just about as bad as today and just about as accurate. Eventually a study was ordered and they ruled that the dam failed because the water coming over the dam ate away at the foundation. The construction company's foreman had warned that the rock the dam sat on was too soft, but the city had fired him and found someone with better opinions. The dam had cost $1.4 million to build (maybe $100 to $200 million in today's money) and the city still owed $1M on it when it failed. The contractor spent years and years in court and was finally able to get paid most of the remaining money.

Granite block with steel rod

The Great Dam was about sixty feet high, sixty feet wide at the base and about 1100 feet long. It was usually referred to as a "masonry dam" in newspapers of the day. They described how granite blocks were mortared together and some concrete was poured to secure it, with the center section of the dam filled with rock rubble to give it some mass. Newspapers then were about as accurate as now. As you can see in the picture, two-inch steel rods were sunk into holes bored in the granite to additionally secure the structure (there are several places where you can see these rods poking out of granite blocks on the island today and other places where all that is left is the smooth bored holes).

Granite block with holes that would have been filled with steel rods

By the 1980's the island was an eyesore. People were secretly driving onto the island at night and dumping trash. Fishermen were driving their cars onto the island and wearing a muddy road up and down the length of it. The city finally decided to close it to vehicular traffic in 1986 and in 1987 the city announced that it would be made into an official city park as part of an overall beautification of Town Lake (now known as Lady Bird Lake after the death of Lady Bird Johnson in 2007). In 2001, Red Bud Isle was further upgraded and given official status as an off-leash dog park.

During the re-dedication, one of the officials said words to the effect of "you would never know that this was a construction staging area for the Ulrich Water Treatment plant (which is just up the hill along Red Bud Trail) and that the Ulrich Water Transmission Tunnel runs right underneath it." I read this in some news about the re-dedication ceremony, but I wasn't able to find out anything further on the tunnel. The only thing I found was a schematic of the city's water infrastructure that seems to show a tunnel under the river just south of the island. It was just a schematic, however, and didn't show enough detail to really tell anything (if you have more info on this, let me know). Here's what the southern tip of Red Bud Isle looks like. That cypress tree must have started growing soon after the flood...

Southern tip of Red Bud Isle

It's a great place to take a dog. There is lots of room to run and lots of places where the dogs can wade and swim (people too). Those with water dogs can throw balls in the water and let the dogs fetch them – the current is rarely strong enough to matter.