5 Austin freebies: First photo to bats
AUSTIN — The Texas Capital, the Live Music Capital of the World, the Velvet Crown, Bat City or simply River City. Residents of Austin claim many titles and are known for their slogan: “Keep Austin Weird.”
Some locals pejoratively call their hometown “festival city,” because there seems to be one every weekend, such as South by Southwest in March and the Austin City Limits Music Festival in October. Many festivalgoers don’t realize that Austin also is home to the first photograph, a Gutenberg Bible and the world’s largest urban bat colony.
And the best thing for a city that prides itself on environmentalism is that all these free sites can be visited in a single day’s walk.
Harry Ransom Center
Begin your day on the southwest corner of the University of TexasAustin campus, home to one of the largest archives in the world. The Harry Ransom Center holds 42 million manuscripts, 1 million rare books and 5 million photographs.
Just inside the front door, visitors can enter a kiosk where a Gutenberg Bible, one of the first printed books, is on display. In a dimly lit alcove nearby, the world’s first photograph resides. The center holds regular multimedia exhibitions from the collection; “World at War: 1914-1918” runs through Aug. 3.
Details: www.hrc.utexas.edu.
Texas State Capitol
From the Ransom Center, walk southeast about nine blocks to the big pink dome. The Texas Capitol opened in 1885, built from pink granite quarried in the Texas Hill Country.
The dome is 15 feet taller than the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., and it faces south, to show solidarity with the Confederacy. The
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