A history of Austin,
since 1853
Postcards, papers and photographs of Austin from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗Fertile land, trapping, and ease of access brought first trappers and then the early pioneers to this region. The rich gameland attracted Austin Nichols, a trapper who built the first log cabin in 1853. At that time there were "about twenty families in the area." In 1855, more settlers began to arrive by wagon train from New England, upstate New York, and northern Pennsylvania. By 1856 enough people were present to organize Mower County. In 1856 the settlement adopted the name "Austin", in honor of its first settler. That year the first hotel opened to travelers and the first physician, Dr. Ormanzo Allen, moved to town. The first newspaper, the Mower County Mirror, was started in 1858.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish Austin’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
4 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewHormelPlantAustinMNpostcard, 1920: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Austin, decade by decade
1990s
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Carnegie Public Library (1890) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (5) and the Library of Congress (1). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.