Town Lake
Encyclopedia
Lady Bird Lake is a reservoir
Reservoir
A reservoir , artificial lake or dam is used to store water.Reservoirs may be created in river valleys by the construction of a dam or may be built by excavation in the ground or by conventional construction techniques such as brickwork or cast concrete.The term reservoir may also be used to...

 on the Colorado River
Colorado River (Texas)
The Colorado River is a river that runs through the U.S. state of Texas; it should not be confused with the much longer Colorado River which flows from Colorado into the Gulf of California....

 in downtown Austin
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...

, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It was created in 1960 by the construction of Longhorn Dam
Longhorn Dam
Longhorn Dam is a dam located at 30.2504, -97.7135 on the Colorado River within the city limits of Austin, Texas, USA. Longhorn Dam was built by the city of Austin and finished in 1960 as the last in a chain of Colorado River dams in central Texas started during the Great Depression...

 and is owned and operated by the City of Austin and the Lower Colorado River Authority
Lower Colorado River Authority
The Lower Colorado River Authority or LCRA is a nonprofit public utility that was created in November 1934 by the Texas Legislature. LCRA's mission is to protect people, property and the environment by providing public services for more than one million people in Central and Southeast Texas...

. The surface area of the lake is 416 acres, and it is used primarily for flood control and recreation. Located on the lake's shoreline are various hotels and apartments, as well as the Auditorium Shores
Auditorium Shores
Auditorium Shores is a public park located on Lady Bird Lake in downtown Austin, Texas....

 park and the Austin Hike and Bike Trail.

History

The reservoir was formed in 1960 by the construction of Longhorn Dam
Longhorn Dam
Longhorn Dam is a dam located at 30.2504, -97.7135 on the Colorado River within the city limits of Austin, Texas, USA. Longhorn Dam was built by the city of Austin and finished in 1960 as the last in a chain of Colorado River dams in central Texas started during the Great Depression...

 at its eastern boundary by the City of Austin. The western end of the lake is bounded by Tom Miller Dam
Tom Miller Dam
Tom Miller Dam is a dam located at 30.2932, -97.7855 on the Colorado River within the city limits of Austin, Texas, USA. It is one of several dams constructed by the City of Austin for the purpose of flood control and for generating hydroelectric power...

, built in 1939. The lake was created for several reasons, including the need for a cooling pond for the Holly Street Power Plant. The reservoir was also envisioned from the beginning as a recreational venue for the city.

By the 1970s, Town Lake and its shoreline had become neglected, polluted and overgrown with weeds. KTBC referred to the lake as an "eyesore." During his two terms in office (1971–1975), the Mayor of Austin Roy Butler
Roy Butler
Roy Anderson Butler was an American politician and businessman, who served as the Mayor of Austin, Texas, from 1971 until 1975.Butler was the first Mayor of Austin to be directly elected by city voters...

 partnered with former United States First Lady Lady Bird Johnson
Lady Bird Johnson
Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Taylor Johnson was First Lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969 during the presidency of her husband Lyndon B. Johnson. Throughout her life, she was an advocate for beautification of the nation's cities and highways and conservation of natural resources and made that...

 to establish the Town Lake Beautification Committee with the purpose of transforming the Town Lake area into a usable recreation area. A system of hike
Hike
Hike may refer to:* Hiking, walking lengthy distances in the countryside or wilderness* Hiking , moving a sailor's body weight as far to windward as possible, in order to counteract the force of the wind pushing sideways against the boat's sails* Alternative spelling for Heka , an Egyptian god*...

 and bike trails was built along the shoreline of the lake in the 1970s, establishing (what was then known as) Town Lake as a major recreational attraction for the city of Austin.

On July 26, 2007, the Austin City Council passed a resolution authorizing the renaming of the reservoir from Town Lake to Lady Bird Lake in honor of Lady Bird Johnson
Lady Bird Johnson
Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Taylor Johnson was First Lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969 during the presidency of her husband Lyndon B. Johnson. Throughout her life, she was an advocate for beautification of the nation's cities and highways and conservation of natural resources and made that...

, the former First Lady
First Lady
First Lady or First Gentlemanis the unofficial title used in some countries for the spouse of an elected head of state.It is not normally used to refer to the spouse or partner of a prime minister; the husband or wife of the British Prime Minister is usually informally referred to as prime...

 of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and a long-time resident of the Austin area who had died earlier that month. Johnson had declined the honor of having the lake renamed for her during her life. In renaming the lake, the City Council recognized Johnson for her dedication to beautifying the lake and her efforts to create a recreational trail system around the lake's shoreline.

Lady Bird Lake is the easternmost lake of a chain of reservoirs on the Colorado River. This chain, known locally as the Texas Highland Lakes
Texas Highland Lakes
The Texas Highland Lakes is a chain of seven reservoirs in Central Texas formed by several dams on the Colorado River. This portion of the river winds southeast from its headwaters near the border of Texas and New Mexico to Matagorda Bay and the Gulf of Mexico...

, also includes Lake Buchanan, Inks Lake
Inks Lake
Inks Lake is a reservoir on the Colorado River in the Texas Hill Country in the United States. The reservoir was formed in 1938 by the construction of Inks Dam by the Lower Colorado River Authority. Located near Burnet, Texas, the lake serves to provide flood control in tandem with Lake Buchanan...

, Lake LBJ
Lake LBJ
Lake Lyndon B. Johnson is a reservoir on the Colorado River in the Texas Hill Country in the United States. The reservoir was formed in 1950 by the construction of Granite Shoals Dam by the Lower Colorado River Authority. The Colorado River and the Llano River meet in the northern portion of the...

, Lake Marble Falls
Lake Marble Falls
Lake Marble Falls is a reservoir on the Colorado River in the Texas Hill Country in the United States. The reservoir was formed in 1951 by the construction of Max Starcke Dam by the Lower Colorado River Authority. Originally named Marble Falls Dam, the dam was renamed in 1962 for Max Starcke, the...

, Lake Travis
Lake Travis
Lake Travis is a reservoir on the Colorado River in central Texas in the United States. The reservoir was formed in 1942 by the construction of Mansfield Dam on the western edge of Austin, Texas by the Lower Colorado River Authority...

, and Lake Austin
Lake Austin
Lake Austin is a reservoir on the Colorado River in Austin, Texas in the United States. The reservoir was formed in 1939 by the construction of Tom Miller Dam by the Lower Colorado River Authority....

.

Recreational uses

Lady Bird Lake is a major recreation area for the city of Austin. Its banks are bounded by the Lady Bird Lake Hike and Bike Trail, and businesses offer recreational watercraft services along the lakefront portion of the trails. Austin's largest downtown park, Zilker Park
Zilker Park
Zilker Metropolitan Park is a recreational area in the heart of south Austin that comprises over of publicly owned land. It is named after its benefactor Andrew Jackson Zilker, who donated the land to the city in 1917. It was developed into the park during the Great Depression in the 1930s...

, is adjacent to the lake, and Barton Springs
Barton Springs
Barton Springs is a set of four natural water springs located on the grounds of Zilker Park in Austin, Texas resulting from water flowing through the Edwards Aquifer. The largest spring, Main Barton Spring supplies water to Barton Springs Pool, a popular recreational destination in Austin...

, a major attraction for swimmers, flows into the lake. Much of the landscaped beauty of the parks surrounding Lady Bird Lake can be credited to the former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, who, in the 1970s, focused her attention on the Town Lake Beautification Project.

The Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge
Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge
The Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge crosses over Lady Bird Lake in Austin, Texas. Before the construction of Longhorn Dam was completed in 1960, the bridge crossed the Colorado River from which Lady Bird Lake is impounded...

 spans the Lady Bird Lake and is home to North America's largest urban colony of Mexican Free-tailed Bat
Mexican Free-tailed Bat
The Mexican free-tailed bat , also known as the Brazilian free-tailed bat, is a medium-sized bat that is native to the Americas and is widely regarded as one of the most abundant mammals in North America...

s, with a summer population of 1.5 million bats. At dusk, from March to September, Austinites and tourists line the bridge and lake shore to watch the dramatic sight of the bats streaming out in their nightly quest for insects. Eight other bridges span the lake, including two pedestrian-only bridges.

The City of Austin prohibits operation of most motorized watercraft on Lady Bird Lake. As a result, the lake serves as a popular recreational area for kayak
Kayak
A kayak is a small, relatively narrow, human-powered boat primarily designed to be manually propelled by means of a double blade paddle.The traditional kayak has a covered deck and one or more cockpits, each seating one paddler...

s, canoe
Canoe
A canoe or Canadian canoe is a small narrow boat, typically human-powered, though it may also be powered by sails or small electric or gas motors. Canoes are usually pointed at both bow and stern and are normally open on top, but can be decked over A canoe (North American English) or Canadian...

s, dragon boat
Dragon boat
A dragon boat is a human-powered watercraft traditionally made, in the Pearl River delta region of southern China - Guangdong Province, of teak wood to various designs and sizes. In other parts of China different woods are used to build these traditional watercraft...

s, and rowing shell
Rowing (sport)
Rowing is a sport in which athletes race against each other on rivers, on lakes or on the ocean, depending upon the type of race and the discipline. The boats are propelled by the reaction forces on the oar blades as they are pushed against the water...

s. Austin's warm climate and the river's calm waters, nearly 6 miles (9.7 km) length and straight courses are especially popular with crew
Sport rowing
Rowing is a sport in which athletes race against each other on rivers, on lakes or on the ocean, depending upon the type of race and the discipline. The boats are propelled by the reaction forces on the oar blades as they are pushed against the water...

 teams and clubs. Along with the University of Texas women's rowing team and coeducational club rowing team, who practice on Lady Bird Lake year-round, teams from northern universities (including the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

, the University of Oklahoma
University of Oklahoma
The University of Oklahoma is a coeducational public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two became the state of Oklahoma. the university had 29,931 students enrolled, most located at its...

, and the University of Nebraska) train on Lady Bird Lake during Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

 holidays and spring breaks
Spring break
Spring break – also known as March break, Study week or Reading week in the United Kingdom and some parts of Canada – is a recess in early spring at universities and schools in the United States, Canada, mainland China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, the United...

. Other water sports along the shores of the lake include swimming in Deep Eddy Pool
Deep Eddy Pool
Deep Eddy Pool is a historic, man-made swimming pool in Austin, Texas. Deep Eddy is the oldest swimming pool in Texas and features a bathhouse built during the Depression era by the Works Progress Administration...

, the oldest swimming pool in Texas, and Barton Springs Pool
Barton Springs Pool
Barton Springs Pool is a man-made recreational swimming pool located on the grounds of Zilker Park in Austin, Texas. The pool exists in the channel of Barton Creek and is filled by water from Main Barton Spring, the fourth largest spring in Texas...

, a natural pool on Barton Creek
Barton Creek
Barton Creek is a tributary that feeds the Colorado River as it flows through the Texas Hill Country. The creek passes through some of the more scenic areas in Greater Austin and forms a greenbelt that is the habitat for many indigenous species of flora and fauna, including at least seven...

 which flows into Lady Bird Lake. Below Tom Miller Dam is Red Bud Isle, a small island formed by the 1900 collapse of the McDonald Dam
McDonald Dam failure
The McDonald Dam , also referred to as "The Great Granite Dam" failure was a catastrophic dam failure near Austin, Texas that killed several dozen people in 1900. The destruction of the dam drained the Lake McDonald reservoir and left the city of Austin without electrical power for a number of...

 that serves as a recreation area with a dog park and access to the lake for canoeing and fishing.

Music venues on the banks of Lady Bird Lake are home to a number of events year-round, including the Austin City Limits Music Festival
Austin City Limits Music Festival
The Austin City Limits Music Festival is an annual three-day American music festival that takes place in Austin, Texas at the city's central public park, Zilker Park...

 in the fall, the Austin
Austin
Austin is the capital of the U.S. state of Texas.Austin may also refer to:-In the United States:*Austin, Arkansas*Austin, Colorado*Austin, Chicago, Illinois*Austin, Indiana*Austin, Minnesota*Austin, Nevada*Austin, Oregon...

 Reggae Festival and Spamarama
Spamarama
Spamarama was a long-time annual festival and competitive cookoff held in Austin, Texas from 1976 to 2007 as a parody of Spam.Officially called the Pandemonious Potted Pork Festival, SPAMARAMA was held on a weekend close to April Fool's Day in Waterloo Park and drew tens of thousands of people to...

 in the spring, and many open-air concerts at Auditorium Shores
Auditorium Shores
Auditorium Shores is a public park located on Lady Bird Lake in downtown Austin, Texas....

 on the south bank and Fiesta Gardens on the north bank. The Austin Aqua Festival
Austin Aqua Festival
The Austin Aqua Festival was a ten day festival held the first week of August on the shores of Town Lake in Austin, Texas from 1962 until 1998...

 was held on the shores of Lady Bird Lake from 1962 until 1998. The late Austin resident and blues guitar legend, Stevie Ray Vaughan
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Stephen Ray "Stevie Ray" Vaughan was an American electric blues guitarist and singer. He was the younger brother of Jimmie Vaughan and frontman for Double Trouble, a band that included bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton. Born in Dallas, Vaughan moved to Austin at the age of 17 and...

 played a number of concerts at Auditorium Shores
Auditorium Shores
Auditorium Shores is a public park located on Lady Bird Lake in downtown Austin, Texas....

 and is honored with a memorial statue on the banks.

Hike and Bike Trail

The Lady Bird Lake Hike and Bike Trail, formerly the Town Lake Hike and Bike Trail, creates a complete circuit around Lady Bird Lake. It is one of the oldest urban
Urban area
An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...

 Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 hike and bike paths. The trail is the longest trail designed for non-motorized traffic maintained by the City of Austin
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...

 Parks and Recreation Department and watched after by a local non-profit named The Trail Foundation.

The trail is 10.1 miles (16.3 km) long and mostly flat, with 97.5% of it at less than an 8% grade. The trail's surface is smooth and is mostly crushed granite except for a few lengths of concrete and a short detour over city sidewalks on the South-side of the lake. A pedestrian bridge incorporated into the trail bridges Barton Creek. The Roberta Crenshaw
Roberta Crenshaw
Roberta P. Crenshaw was an Austin-area philanthropist and civic pioneer.- Philanthropy :Roberta Crenshaw campaigned for over 60 years to preserve parkland in Austin, Texas and supported Austin-area cultural institutions.- Park Philanthropy :...

 Pedestrian Walkway spans Lady Bird Lake beneath MoPac Boulevard and provides the trail's westernmost crossing of Lady Bird Lake.

Before 1971, the shoreline of what was then called Town Lake was mostly a mixture of weeds, unkempt bushes, and trash. Some concerned Austinites tried to clean up the lake, but the effort was only partly successful. In 1971, the City of Austin created the Town Lake Beautification Project and appointed Lady Bird Johnson
Lady Bird Johnson
Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Taylor Johnson was First Lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969 during the presidency of her husband Lyndon B. Johnson. Throughout her life, she was an advocate for beautification of the nation's cities and highways and conservation of natural resources and made that...

 as the project's honorary chairman. Johnson's involvement brought attention and money (including $19,000 of her own) to the Town Lake project, allowing for the planting of hundreds of shrubs and trees and the completion of the Hike and Bike Trail from the piecemeal construction that had been done up to that time.

Drinking water uses

The first water treatment facility in the City of Austin, the Thomas C. Green Water Treatment Plant, was built in 1925 to treat water from the Colorado River. The plant occupied 6 acres (2.4 ha) just west of the principal downtown business district. The water treatment facility was decommissioned in late 2008.

Fish populations

Lady Bird Lake has been stocked with several species of fish intended to improve the utility of the reservoir for recreational fishing. Fish present in Lady Bird Lake include largemouth bass
Largemouth bass
The largemouth bass is a species of black bass in the sunfish family native to North America . It is also known as widemouth bass, bigmouth, black bass, bucketmouth, Potter's fish, Florida bass, Florida largemouth, green bass, green trout, linesides, Oswego bass, southern largemouth...

, catfish
Catfish
Catfishes are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Named for their prominent barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, catfish range in size and behavior from the heaviest and longest, the Mekong giant catfish from Southeast Asia and the second longest, the wels catfish of Eurasia, to detritivores...

, carp
Carp
Carp are various species of oily freshwater fish of the family Cyprinidae, a very large group of fish native to Europe and Asia. The cypriniformes are traditionally grouped with the Characiformes, Siluriformes and Gymnotiformes to create the superorder Ostariophysi, since these groups have certain...

, and sunfish
Centrarchidae
The sunfishes are a family of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the order Perciformes. The type genus is Centrarchus . The family's 27 species includes many fishes familiar to North Americans, including the rock bass, largemouth bass, bluegill, pumpkinseed, and crappies...

. A ban on the consumption of fish caught in the lake was issued by the City of Austin in 1990, as a result of excessively high levels of chlordane
Chlordane
Chlordane, or chlordan, is an organochlorine compound that was used as a pesticide. This white solid was sold in the U.S. until 1983 as an insecticide for crops like corn and citrus and on lawns and domestic gardens.-Production and uses:...

found in the fish. Although the use of chlordane as a pesticide was banned in the United States in 1988, the chemical sticks strongly to soil particles and can continue to pollute groundwater for years after its application. The ban on the consumption of fish caught in the lake was finally lifted in 1999.

External links

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