Live in Bouldin Creek

Colonel James Bouldin came to Austin in the early 1850s and gathered land south of the river for a plantation, and the African Americans who had worked it stayed after emancipation and built their own churches. His family subdivided the Bouldin Addition in 1894, and the censuses of 1900 to 1920 recorded the blocks between South Congress and South First as almost entirely Black. A Hispanic community grew in the 1940s around San Juan Catholic Church on West Mary Street. Most houses went up in the 1920s and 1930s, beside the Texas School for the Deaf, established in 1856, whose 65-acre campus runs from Barton Springs Road to Elizabeth Street. This guide covers the City's Bouldin Creek planning area: Lady Bird Lake to Oltorf Street, South Congress to the Union Pacific tracks, about 1.19 square miles and 6,231 residents at the 2020 census, with South First Street down the middle.

Nothing here holds the old houses in place. No local historic district and no National Register district covers any of the planning area; the City lists 16 individual landmarks, among them the moonlight tower on South First and Green Pastures on West Live Oak. The 2002 neighborhood plan set out design guidelines for porches, garages and driveways but made them voluntary, and asked for a historic survey. The City's HOME amendments now allow up to three homes on a single-family lot. The appraisal roll shows the result: of 1,172 single-family houses with a year built, 408 date from 2000 or later and 176 from 2015 or later, and only 412 from before 1941. Across South Congress, in a planning area half covered by a Register district, 245 of 1,257 are that new. The median lot here is about 0.15 acres, and 107 parcels are vacant lots.

The people changed with the houses. On the same blocks the census counted 5,488 residents in 2010 and 6,231 in 2020, while the number who were Hispanic fell from 1,805 to 1,438, from 33% to 23%. About six in ten occupied homes were rented both times. The county's parcel layer does not say which year its values are, so this guide gives no median assessment. Zillow, which counts condominiums and draws its own Bouldin Creek, put the typical value at $830,105 in August 2026, against $834,133 a year earlier, $1,180,618 at the July 2022 peak and $299,036 in 2010. On the 2025 rates a homestead at that value owes the five taxing units about $13,994 a year, and the same house without the exemption about $16,988; the citywide arithmetic is on the Austin page.

Two creeks cross the grid. East and West Bouldin Creeks run north to the lake, and the City's fully developed 100-year floodplain covers about 16.5% of the land, some 48 of its 126 acres in parks. It covers more than a tenth of 62 of the 1,177 house lots, most of them on South Sixth and South Third Streets. FEMA's 1% annual chance map, the one a lender reads, covers more than a tenth of 53. Here the City's map is the wider one, so an address can be in one and not the other.

Downtown is across the water. Republic Square is about a half-hour walk over the First Street bridge, Route 10 runs up South First and MetroRapid 801 up South Congress, the eastern edge. The federal Record of Decision of January 2026 puts light rail down South Congress to Oltorf, where H-E-B reopened its rebuilt store in 2024, with riders estimated from 2033.

Worth knowing before you commit

Assume the lot next door will be rebuilt

No historic district, voluntary design guidelines, and up to three homes a lot under HOME

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• Check the address on both flood maps: the City's covers more than a tenth of 62 house lots, FEMA's of 53
• Look up the 2026-27 elementary for the exact address; the blocks split three ways after Becker closed
• Read the zoning of the lots around you before you pay for the view or the quiet
• Work the tax out on your own price, because the seller's capped value ends with the sale

How Bouldin Creek got here

• 1850sColonel James Bouldin, born in Virginia in 1796, comes to Austin from Missouri and buys land south of the river, much of it from the Isaac Decker League, for a large plantation. Many of the African Americans who worked it and nearby plantations stay after emancipation and found churches and a community of their own.
• 1856The Texas School for the Deaf is established; its campus now covers 65 acres between South Congress and South First Street, from Barton Springs Road to Elizabeth Street.
• 1894After the Colonel's death in 1876 and his son David's in the early 1890s, the family subdivides the Bouldin Addition, between East Bouldin Creek and the railroad and from West Elizabeth to West Live Oak Street, and South Heights around Gibson Street. Dr. E. W. Herndon's Victorian house of the same year, on West Live Oak Street, is where John Henry Faulk grew up; it is now Green Pastures.
• 1895Austin puts up its moonlight towers; one still stands at 1606 South First Street, a City landmark.
• 1900The 1900, 1910 and 1920 censuses record the Brackenridge area, between South Congress and South First from the School for the Deaf to Oltorf, as almost entirely Black. St. Anne African Methodist Episcopal Church is built at 1711 Newton Street in 1916.
• 1920sMost of the neighborhood's growth comes in the 1920s and 1930s, and a dozen or more family groceries operate on South First Street, most of them gone after the Second World War.
• 1940sA Hispanic community grows around the San Juan Catholic Church at West Mary and South Third Streets.
• 1956The Texas School for the Deaf's original building is demolished; a long renovation of the campus begins in 1992.
• 1982The City acquires the 16-acre West Bouldin Creek Greenbelt and Nicholas Dawson Neighborhood Park on West James Street.
• 2002The Council adopts the Bouldin Creek Neighborhood Plan on 23 May, with the zoning that carries it out. Its design guidelines for porches, garages and driveways are voluntary, and it asks for a historic survey of the whole neighborhood.
• 2010The census counts 5,488 residents and 2,940 homes on the blocks of today's planning area; 1,805 residents are Hispanic, and 1,604 of 2,685 occupied homes are rented.
• 2020The census counts 6,231 residents and 3,622 homes. Hispanic residents number 1,438, 23% of the total, and 2,017 of 3,273 occupied homes are rented.
• 2022Zillow's typical value for Bouldin Creek peaks at $1,180,618 in July, against $299,036 in August 2010.
• 2023On 7 December the Council adopts HOME Phase 1, allowing up to three homes on a single-family lot; Phase 2 follows on 16 May 2024 with an 1,800-square-foot minimum lot.
• 2024H-E-B reopens its rebuilt store at South Congress and Oltorf, just past the neighborhood's southeast corner, on 4 December.
• 2025In November the school board votes to close ten schools, Becker Elementary on West Milton Street among them, on the site of the Bouldin family home, and Dawson Elementary to the south. Becker's students go to Galindo or Zilker, Dawson's to Galindo, and Becker's dual language program moves to Sánchez.
• 2026The federal Record of Decision in January puts light rail down South Congress, the eastern edge, to Oltorf Street. Zillow's typical value stands at $830,105 in August, against $834,133 a year earlier.

What the map does not show: the lake is for paddling; swimming and wading in it are illegal. The swimming is at Barton Springs Pool, west across the tracks, at 68 to 70 °F all year, and the light rail plan counts Auditorium Shores among the parks it will touch.

Elsewhere in Austin, not Bouldin Creek

The free option is the Butler Trail, a 10-mile loop around Lady Bird Lake, reached at Auditorium Shores.