East Riverside-Oltorf is a neighborhood in Austin, Texas, located southeast of the city's urban core. The East Riverside, Parker Lane, and Pleasant Valley neighborhoods together form the East Riverside-Oltorf Combined Neighborhood Planning Area. The region is bounded on the north by Lake Lady Bird, to the east by Grove Boulevard and the Montopolis neighborhood, Texas State Highway 71 to the south, and Interstate 35 and South River City to the west.
East Riverside Drive is a highly traveled roadway located a few minutes from Downtown Austin, but was until recently a neglected area of Austin. In addition to being a primary route between Downtown Austin and the Austin Bergstrom International Airport, the City of Austin has deemed it an important corridor for development. Recently there has been significant interest in the redevelopment of several large properties in the area.
Demographics
According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, area population totaled 50,133 in 2009. There are 6,504 people per square mile, more than double the citywide average of 2,610. The median age is 25 years and the median family income is more than $27,884 a year.
According to a 2010 American Community Survey, there were an estimated 5,598 undergraduate students living in the neighborhood. Between 2000 and 2010, the white population declined from 44 percent to 29 percent among college-age residents, while Asians declined from 9.7 percent to 6 percent. The population of college-age Hispanics increased from 37 percent to 47 percent, and African-Americans increased from 6.3 percent to 9 percent.
History
19th century
Prior to the 20th century, much of the East Riverside-Oltorf area was part of the Del Valle land grant, originally purchased from the government of Mexico by Benjamin Milam in 1825. The land grant was later deeded to Santiago Del Valle, a government official for Coahuila y Tejas during the Texas Revolution.
In 1850, Hugh Tinnin purchased 500 acres of land south of the Colorado River, west of the present-day Pleasant Valley Road. Approximately 100 slaves cut timber from the shore and built a large house and cabins in the present-day Travis Heights. In 1854, Tinnin opened a ford across the river, which became part of the Chisolm Trail. The trail traversed the present-day Peace Point peninsula, Snake Island, then across the river to the present-day Longhorn Dam.
20th century
Until the mid-20th century, the East Riverside-Oltorf area remained largely rural and many vast plots of land were still deeded to the Del Valle land grant. In 1949, the Austin Country Club opened on land purchased from the Del Valle grant. Golfer Harvey Penick, a teacher at the Country Club, built a small cluster of homes facing the golf course along Penick Place. The land between Pleasant Valley Road and the Country Club was formerly a cattle farm owned by Fagan Dickson and Roberta Crenshaw. In 1973, the Dicksons applied to redevelop their 497 acres into a sprawling planned unit development divided into 25 sections, known as "The Crossing". The development included an extension of Lakeshore Boulevard from Pleasant Valley Road along the river to Montopolis Drive. The development that came to fruition was a handful of parcels bounded by Crossing Place and Faro Drive; Crenshaw later donated 30 acres to establish Roy G. Guerrero Park and sold the remaining land to developers to construct student housing.
In the 1970s, the City of Austin partnered with the University of Texas to construct off-campus housing for students between East Riverside and Lakeshore Drive. Following the closure of Bergstrom Air Force Base in 1993, the demographics of the neighborhood began to change. In the 1990s, the East Riverside-Oltorf neighborhood became one of Austin's biggest ports of entries for immigrant households, primarily from Mexico, Latin America, and Asian countries.