Zilker's Clay Pit Bucket Tower, Austin

Rising above what is now Zilker Park in Austin, this tower is one of three that once supported a cable conveyor system stretching across the Colorado River. A. J.

Zilker, the Swedish immigrant entrepreneur whose name the park now bears, installed the system in nineteen oh two to transport clay from pits on the south bank to a brickmaking facility on the north side. The clay was used to manufacture the bricks that built much of early twentieth-century Austin. By nineteen twelve the Butler Brick Company had taken over the operation.

The industrial infrastructure eventually fell into disuse as the neighborhood transformed, and Zilker later sold much of his land to the City of Austin. The lone surviving tower now stands as an industrial artifact inside one of the city's most beloved parks, a quiet reminder that Zilker Park was once a working clay mine.