#3: Spend An Afternoon At The Austin History Center

The Austin History Center is NOT A MUSEUM! I want to be VERY clear on this point, because they were extremely adamant in making sure I understood that they were a collection of archives. So that being said...I spent a beautiful Tuesday afternoon inside this non-museum looking at a lot of really interesting things! Honestly, this was one of those things that I was kind of planning on phoning in--it didn't seem that interesting to me, and I was just trying to get through it to check it off the list. When I got there, though, I found a lot of really cool things to absorb myself in for a couple of hours. Some of the standouts included: the original, handwritten letters that Charles Whitman, the infamous UT Tower sniper, wrote just before and after he murdered his mother and wife; a recording and several original works by O. Henry (whose Pun-Off I have to participate in later this year!); articles written by some of the original suffragettes; and a video of Johnny Cash doing a SXSW performance at Emo's on St. Patrick's Day of 1994. Some really cool stuff, and I really did feel like I was absorbing myself into the rich history of MY city. I'm really glad I did the downtown walk before going here--I was able to make lots of connections from what I learned on the tour. I reccommend visiting this place--it's free, it's open all the time, and they change the displays a couple of times a year. What a great experience!