Andrew Jackson Zilker

Zilker reached Austin in 1876 at eighteen and began by washing dishes, then worked on the Congress Avenue Bridge before an icemaker made him foreman within months. He soon owned the plant, and ice stayed his main business. From 1901 he bought land between the Colorado River and Barton Creek, about 350 acres including the springs, to pasture his ice-wagon animals and draw spring water for ice. He built a small concrete pool and amphitheater for his Elks lodge. He also became Austin's first Coca-Cola bottler, an alderman, a bank director and a school board president.

What the plaque says

Andrew Jackson Zilker Voted Austin's most worthy citizen twice, Indiana native Andrew Jackson Zilker (1858-1934) grew up with a strong respect for the laborers along the Ohio River. He came to Austin penniless in 1876 but quickly became a businessman and bank director. He contributed to his community at the neighborhood, city and county levels. Believing in the importance of "practical" education, he indirectly funded school industrial programs when he sold 366 acres of parkland, including Barton Springs, to the city. The payments on the land were required to go to the school district. A gift of 32 additional acres in 1934 added to the city's most cherished recreation area, Zilker Park. (2003)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Barton Springs Pool — steps away
  A three-acre pool in the bed of Barton Creek, fed by the fourth-largest spring in Texas at 68 to 70 degrees, and shared with an endangered salamander found almost nowhere else.
• Texas State Capitol — 2.0 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 2.2 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.
• Harry Ransom Center — 2.3 mi
  The University of Texas archive where a Gutenberg Bible and the earliest surviving camera photograph are always on view, free, beside the papers of Watergate and the movies.

More markers nearby

• Barton Springs — steps away
• Approximate Location of the Missions — steps away
• Swedes of Texas — 0.4 mi
• Austin High School — 0.7 mi