What could have been a casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic has resurfaced in an appropriate, socially distant format.
The Austin History Center was in the final stages of producing pieces for a new exhibit, Hidden Austin: Stories from the Original Square Mile, when the COVID-19 pandemic triggered stay-at-home orders and the shutdown of most public spaces, including the AHC. Rather than scrap the work, AHC staff pivoted and transformed the exhibit into a geo-referenced web and mobile multimedia experience that’s now accessible on the AHC website.
The exhibit reveals stories that have taken place over the years in Austin’s original footprint — 640 acres, one square mile, with the Colorado River to the south and Comanche and Apache territory immediately to the west when the town was laid out in 1839.
Much has happened on the original square mile since then, and through the exhibit, the AHC reveals 13 "hidden" stories about Austin, stories that reverberate today but have no physical remnant on the sites in which they occurred.
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