Buford Tower (formerly the Austin Fire Drill Tower) is a
tower
A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...
standing along the north shore of
Lady Bird Lake
Lady Bird Lake (formerly, and still colloquially referred to as Town Lake) is a river-like reservoir on the Colorado River in Austin, Texas, United States. The City of Austin created the reservoir in 1960 as a cooling pond for a new city power p ...
in
downtown
''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...
. The structure was originally built in 1930 as a
drill tower
A drill tower is a tower and training facility for firefighters. It is usually built within a fire station facility for routine exercises and training.
Structure
A drill tower is a multi-level structure simulating high-rise buildings. Heights var ...
for the
Austin Fire Department
The Austin Fire Department provides fire protection and first-response emergency medical services to the city of Austin, Texas. The Austin Fire Department is the fourth largest fire department (by number of personnel) in the state of Texas. In ...
, but it now serves as a
bell tower
A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...
and landmark. Named after fire department Captain James L. Buford, the structure has been listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
since 2016.
History
Austin first established a
professional fire department in 1916, creating a need for a
drill tower
A drill tower is a tower and training facility for firefighters. It is usually built within a fire station facility for routine exercises and training.
Structure
A drill tower is a multi-level structure simulating high-rise buildings. Heights var ...
where the firefighters could train. On December 26, 1929,
City Council
A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counc ...
authorized construction of a fire drill tower on a parcel of land along the
Colorado River
The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid drainage basin, watershed that encompasses parts of ...
downtown, where the river could provide water for testing
fire hose
A fire hose (or firehose) is a high-pressure hose that carries water or other fire retardant (such as foam) to a fire to extinguish it. Outdoors, it attaches either to a fire engine, fire hydrant, or a portable fire pump. Indoors, it can perma ...
s and extinguishing training fires. The tower was built in 1930 at a cost of $6,200 (),
and it immediately began to be burned and flooded regularly during training exercises and the testing of equipment. It also served as a backdrop for fire department photographs, social events, and public firefighting demonstrations.
As decades passed, firefighting technology advanced, and Austin's buildings grew taller. In the 1960s, snorkel trucks gave the city's firefighters access to higher windows than could be reached with traditional ladders, and the tower's value as a training facility declined. At the same time, the growth of the city meant that the drill tower, originally built near the southern edge of town, was now crowded by tall modern buildings and heavy traffic, making the training fires a growing hazard to downtown. Finally, in 1974 the fire department opened a new training tower in southeast Austin, and the original Fire Drill Tower was closed.
Restoration and carillon
The tower stood unused and untended for years, and its unglazed windows allowed it to become infested with
pigeon
Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primarily ...
s;
eventually the city marked the structure for demolition.
In 1978, however, Effie Kitchens (the widow of the tower's original builder) led a public campaign, together with the Austin chapter of the
National Association of Women in Construction
The National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) is a professional association for women in the field of construction. The purpose of the association is to support women in construction through networking, professional education, and ment ...
, to raise funds for the tower's restoration. The campaign raised $45,000, of which Kitchens personally contributed $30,000.
These funds allowed the tower's brick facade to be cleaned, its roof repaired, and its windows
glazed to keep wildlife out. Decorative iron
grillwork
A grille or grill ( French word from Latin ''craticula'', small grill) is an opening of several slits side-by-side in a wall, metal sheet or another barrier, usually to allow air or water to enter and/or leave and prevent larger objects ( ...
was added to the doors at ground level and to the highest level, where an
electronic carillon bell system was installed, transforming the fire drill tower into a working bell tower. After the renovations were completed, on August 23, 1978 the tower was rededicated as Buford Tower, named after Austin Fire Department Captain James L. Buford, the first Austin firefighter to die in the line of duty.
The bell system was named the Kitchens Memorial Chimes, after the tower's builder, Rex D. Kitchens.
Today, the bells chime the hours and play
Christmas carols
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, ...
during the Christmas season.
The tower has also become the site of the Austin Firefighters' Association's annual memorial service for
first responder
A first responder is a person with specialized training who is among the first to arrive and provide assistance or incident resolution at the scene of an emergency, such as an accident, disaster, medical emergency, structure fire, crime, or terr ...
s who lost their lives during the
9/11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated Suicide attack, suicide List of terrorist incidents, terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, ...
.
On April 1, 2021, a fire from a nearby homeless camp extended to the tower causing damage. The fire department ruled the cause of the fire "incendiary," or intentionally set, pending further investigation. The damage is estimated at $12,000.
Architecture
Buford Tower is a freestanding six-story concrete tower
clad with reddish-brown
brick
A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...
with
limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
accents, tall with a square cross-section. Built in the style of an
Italianate
The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...
campanile
A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...
, it features a low-
pitched square
hip roof
A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, ...
and round-arched
Romanesque Revival
Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...
doors and windows.
The tower was designed by local architect
J. Roy White for the Austin-based
Hugo Kuehne architecture firm; its
construction contractor
A general contractor, main contractor or prime contractor is responsible for the day-to-day oversight of a construction site, management of vendors and trades, and the communication of information to all involved parties throughout the course of ...
was local builder Rex D. Kitchens.
Exterior
At its base, the tower rests on a white concrete
plinth
A pedestal (from French ''piédestal'', Italian ''piedistallo'' 'foot of a stall') or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In c ...
. The entrance faces the street on the north side, with three concrete steps leading up to the arched doorway from street level. The doors are covered by black
cast iron
Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...
grillwork gates and flanked by a pair of cast iron light fixtures. On the first five floors, each face of the building is penetrated by one centered window (excepting the first floor, where the north face instead has the front doorway, and the south face is a solid brick wall). The windows are now glazed, though they were originally left open to facilitate airflow to the training fires. The doorway and all of the windows are topped by semicircular brick arches; the windows have concrete
sills, matching the steps below the doorway.
Above the fifth level, the tower is wrapped by a stone
cornice
In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...
supported by brick
corbel
In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...
s, separating the sixth floor from the lower levels. Each wall of the top level features a wider, double-arched opening set into a recessed rectangular bay; the round central column and the arches are of limestone, and square brick
pilaster
In classical architecture
Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...
s with limestone
capitals
Capital may refer to:
Common uses
* Capital city, a municipality of primary status
** List of national capital cities
* Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences
* Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...
frame the openings to the sides. The arches were originally open, but since the 1978 restoration they have been filled with metal mesh and cast iron grillwork. Above these openings, another ring of brick corbels supports the hipped red
tile
Tiles are usually thin, square or rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, walls, edges, or o ...
roof.
Interior
Inside, the ground level has a floor of
pavers, white walls, and a flight of concrete steps leading to the second level. The second through fifth levels are all largely alike, with bare concrete floors and ceilings, and exposed brick walls; they connect to each other by a central steel staircase. The sixth level is accessed from the fifth by an
attic ladder An attic ladder (US) or loft ladder (UK) is a retractable ladder that is installed into an attic door/access panel. They are used as an inexpensive and compact alternative to having a stairway that ascends to the attic of a building. They are usef ...
; it has the same concrete floor and brick walls as the lower levels, but a wooden plank ceiling hides the
rafter
A rafter is one of a series of sloped structural members such as wooden beams that extend from the ridge or hip to the wall plate, downslope perimeter or eave, and that are designed to support the roof shingles, roof deck and its associated ...
s supporting the roof. The top level houses the
loudspeaker
A loudspeaker (commonly referred to as a speaker or speaker driver) is an electroacoustic transducer that converts an electrical audio signal into a corresponding sound. A ''speaker system'', also often simply referred to as a "speaker" or " ...
s of the electronic carillon; the system's controls are below, on the second floor.
See also
*
References
External links
Google Street View from the tower's west sideGoogle Street View from the tower's south side
{{National Register of Historic Places in Austin, Texas
Buildings and structures in Austin, Texas
Towers completed in 1930
Bell towers in the United States
Carillons
National Register of Historic Places in Austin, Texas
Italianate architecture in Texas
Firefighting in Texas
1930 establishments in Texas