CENTRAL TEXAS / THE CITY ARCHIVES
Austin.
Roads through the hills.
Explore Austin freeway history through road photographs, construction records and plans for routes that changed—or never left the page.
Find an Austin road Start with the photographs →
From the Austin archive
Loop 360 crosses Lake Austin below the Hill Country bluffs.
HISTORIC AUSTIN
Austin historic photographs & documents
Road photographs, planning maps, old alignments and signs preserve the Austin that existed before today’s interchanges.
Austin before the next interchange
Browse 87 preserved roadway photographs, organized by road family.
Austin historic photos →
The city drawn on paper
Follow Austin’s streets through historic maps and planning documents.
Historic Austin road maps →Archived directory introduction. See the amazing 1962 freeway plan for Austin, as well as the ambitious 1985 plan and the 2000 plan, photos of the original IH-35 configuration, plus Loop 1 construction, road signs from the 1950’s and 1960’s, plus the “Wrong Way” girl, vestiges of Austin’s road history can be seen around town, and the design that has unleashed a firestorm of opposition. The Loop 1 study was suspended on 2-Feb-200
Browse Austin’s historical collections
ROAD PHOTOS
Austin road photo galleries
Follow Austin roads from downtown freeway decks to Hill Country curves, with original captions and dated archive views.
West Austin roads
see some of the scenic roads in West Austin
View collection →Interstate 35
Views of the substandard freeway and the notorious double deck section.
View archive →
Loop 360
The most scenic urban roadway in Texas.
View collection →
Loop 1 / MoPac
TxDOT ended its participation in the Loop 1 study 4-Feb-2002.
View collection →
US 290 / Texas 71
Austin’s newest freeway has some interesting features.
View collection →
US 183 / Research Boulevard
See the elevated viaduct and the 183/Loop 1 four-level stack.
View collection →
↳ MoPac pushes south through the hills.
AUSTIN ROAD PHOTO ARCHIVES
Know the road?
Find its story.
- I-35Interstate 35Downtown, the double deck and historical views.
- Loop 1MoPacThe freeway beside the railroad corridor.
- US 183Research BoulevardElevated lanes, interchanges and the road before the freeway.
- US 290Ben White BoulevardTexas 71, right-of-way and the I-35 stack.
- Loop 360Capital of Texas HighwayHill Country scenery and the Pennybacker Bridge.
- RM 2222Bull Creek RoadSharp turns, steep grades and the old road.
- SW PkwySouthwest ParkwayA six-lane road through the Barton Creek watershed.
- E–WEast–west Austin roadsSeven corridors across a city with no east–west freeway.
Pick a road. See what the archive remembers.
Around Austin & special collections
- East–west travel in AustinHere are your choices, all of them bad.
- Southwest Parkwaya six lane highway cuts through ultra-prime real estate. So why is there no development?
- Ranch Road 2222the scenic roadway is under increasing traffic pressure
- Llano River floodphotos of the November 4, 2000, Llano River flood.
CONSTRUCTION
Austin before the lanes opened.
Photos and maps for the 4 major projects, including 2 five-level stacks
I-35 / US 290 / Texas 71 interchange ·
2001
FROM THE AUSTIN CONSTRUCTION ARCHIVE
Five levels, still taking shape.
Austin construction projects
- US 183 NorthFour dated visits from 2001 through 2004.
- Ben White / I-35 stackConstruction of the five-level interchange on Austin’s south side.
- I-35 North / US 290The northern interchange from 2000 through 2001.
- SH 45 NorthFrontage-road and interchange construction around Round Rock.
- Town Lake pedestrian bridgeA short construction record completed in June 2001.
- Complete construction indexPhotos, maps and the preserved November 2001 project ledger.
AUSTIN PLANNING
Austin freeway plans & road archive
Austin’s archived freeway plans, abandoned alignments, news and corridor records. These plans and accounts describe their original period.
- Austin freeway plan of 1969A city-scale proposal preserved as a historic planning record.
- Historic freeway planning mapsPlans from 1962, 1969, 1985, 1994 and 2000.
- Abandoned and realigned roadsOld roadbeds and fragments still visible around Austin.
- East–west travel in AustinSeven surface-road corridors across the city.
- MoPac improvement optionsPreserved reporting on the study that was later suspended.
- NewsflashRead news articles about roads and highways in the Austin area.
ABOUT AUSTIN
Austin: the city behind the roads
An earlier portrait of Austin, from the archive.
Archived city profile. This account retains its original wording and describes conditions at the time it was written. It is not a current city profile.
Back to the city archive ↑Capital city and population
The City of Austin is the capital of the U.S. state of Texas. According to 2019 U.S. Census estimates, Austin has a population of 950,807 people, making it the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 11th largest in the United States. Austin is the county seat of Travis County and is situated in Central Texas. The Austin–Round Rock metropolitan area is one of the fastest-growing in the United States and is home to an estimated population of 2.3 million as of 2021.
Waterloo, the river and the fault
Austin, founded in 1839, was first named Waterloo. In 1838, Mirabeau B. Lamar renamed the city in honor of Stephen F. Austin. Its original name is honored by local businesses such as Waterloo Ice House and Waterloo Records. Austin is situated on the Colorado River, and there are three man-made (artificial) lakes within the city limits: Town Lake (now known as Lady Bird Lake), Lake Austin, and Lake Walter E. Long. Additionally, the foot of Lake Travis (including Mansfield Dam), is located within the city’s limits. The city is also situated on the Balcones Fault, which in much of Austin runs roughly the same route as the MoPac expressway.
Austinites, technology and music
Residents of Austin are called “Austinites” and include a heady mix of university professors and their students, politicians, and lobbyists. Austin, home of several major technology corporations, is the center of a high-technology region known as Silicon Hills. It is also the self-proclaimed Live Music Capital of the World.
AUSTIN FACTS
Austin today. More to discover.
Current city and metro figures sit beside a few Austin stories that help explain the landscape. Every statistic shows its reporting period.
The Austin you might miss
Austin facts worth knowing.
Waterloo became the capital.
A small settlement called Waterloo was chosen as the Republic of Texas capital in 1839 and renamed for Stephen F. Austin.
Austin’s history ↗The bridge completed Loop 360.
TxDOT says the road’s remaining section opened with the Pennybacker Bridge in December 1982, twenty years after the west loop was envisioned.
Loop 360 history ↗Barton Springs keeps its cool.
The three-acre pool is fed by underground springs that average 68 to 70 degrees, with water as deep as 18 feet.
About Barton Springs Pool ↗The first Austin Dam failed.
The city’s 60-foot dam failed catastrophically on April 7, 1900. Austin bought the private water company two years later and formed what became Austin Water.
Austin Water history ↗Congress Avenue connects river and Capitol.
The city describes Congress Avenue as downtown’s central spine, linking Lady Bird Lake with the Texas State Capitol.
Congress Avenue ↗
Sources
- U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Austin city — 2025 city estimate, 2020 estimate base, and ACS 2020–2024 language data.
- Census Bureau Vintage 2025 city estimates — Austin’s 2025 population and national rank.
- Census Bureau 2025 metro estimates — Austin MSA population and 2024–2025 growth.
- Local facts: City of Austin and TxDOT, linked beside each entry.
- Photo selected from the TexasFreeway archive. Original photograph collection.
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