CONSTRUCTION
The First Street Bridge was designed by UT School of Engineering
graduate Julian P. Montgomery with 4 lanes and 4 ft sidewalks. The
plan was to help relieve the traffic load on both Lamar Street and
Congress Ave.
The first steel span was placed on its concrete piers on June
22, 1953 with completion projected for late August, 1953. Well,
that didn't quite work out.
The bridge was completed February 1, 1954 (at a cost of
$510,000) and the opening/dedication ceremony was held on February
11. The High point of the dedication was when Mayor A. C. McFadden
described the bridge as being symbolic of a link between "two
segments of the finest people in the United States, those who live
in south Austin and those who live in north Austin."
The first person to cross the bridge was 78 year-old E. R. Noe
who, in 1912, was the first person to officially cross the then new
Congress Avenue Bridge.
On October 19, 1956, the Austin City Council voted to rename the
bridge as The Drake Bridge in honor of William Sherman Drake, Jr.
(1909-1967) who had been the Mayor of Austin at the time the bridge
was built.
NAMESAKE
Mayor Drake's father, William Drake, Sr. (1864-1934), had come
from Connecticut to Austin with his brother Carl where, in 1883,
they founded the Drake Brothers Store. The store was located at 2nd
and Guadalupe; a point where wagon trains entered Austin. Shortly
thereafter, William Sr. bought out his brother and changed the name
of the store to Calcasieu Lumber Company and eventually became the
last Treasurer of the Republic of Texas and the first Treasurer of
the State of Texas.
William Jr.'s first real job came at the age of 21 as a
switchboard operator at the lumber yard. He took over as President
of Calcasieu Lumber 4 years later when his father died.
Drake's political career started when he was first elected to
the Austin City Council in 1949. He served as Mayor Pro Tem from
1949-1950. He was then reelected to the Council in 1951 and was
immediately and unanimously selected by the City Council to serve
as Mayor, replacing Taylor Glass who was stepping down to turn his
attention to running his ice cream factory.
As Mayor (1951-1952), two of Drake's primary interests were
fixing the growing traffic problems that were coming with a growing
Austin and promoting good, clean city government. He was
instrumental in establishing the current pattern of downtown Austin
one-way streets and being sure they, at the time, were synchronized
with lights in and just beyond the downtown Austin area to improve
traffic flow.
EXPANSION
On June 29, 1989, The Austin City Council gave approval for the
expansion of The Drake Bridge to it's current 6 lanes with 10 ft
sunken hike/bike paths.
THE CACHE
OK, now that you know a little of the story behind this bridge,
head out and go find the cache placed there. Watch out for the
muggles (the reason for the high difficulty rating) and be careful
not to drop the cache! If you get lucky and don't have to worry
about muggles, the difficulty drops to a 1. Be sure to bring your
own pen, pencil, crayon, or other writing device of choice.