City of Austin
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASERelease Date:
Join Austin Parks and Recreation for the Eilers Neighborhood Park Ribbon Cutting on Friday, May 6 from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. at 401 Deep Eddy Ave.
Join Austin Parks and Recreation for the Eilers Neighborhood Park Ribbon Cutting on Friday, May 6 from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. at 401 Deep Eddy Ave. This is an outdoor park event, so please dress comfortably. Construction work began in the winter of 2018 and was completed in January of 2020. Due to the Pandemic, the park had limited use and the opening event was postponed.
The project boasts a play structure integrated into the landscape that provides nature-based play opportunities with a swing set, slide, a climbing play element. The park provides accessible walkways and an updated ADA compliant parking stalls to the park and an accessible drinking fountain. It also has new park signage, trash receptacles, picnic tables, benches, and new vibrant landscape to provide a more enhanced park setting. In addition to integrated amenities such as retaining walls, seat walls and land-scape beds, the design enhances the existing circulation routes from the adjacent community and activities.
Additionally, a premier Art in Public Places sculptural element called “Abundance” by artists Ryah Christensen and Sun McColgin was commissioned in the park. Abundance greets visitors to Eilers Park as two stacked cairns forming an archway. Upon further walking into the park, visitors discover more mosaic covered objects nestled into the natural habitat of Eilers Park. The mosaic patterns capture the creative power of nature and wild spirit that has drawn people here for generations.
Eilers Park History
In 1935, the City of Austin purchased most of the land for the small park that surrounds Deep Eddy Pool from A.J. Eilers. The city received five acres of riverfront property, 19 rental cottages, a huge concrete swimming pool (Oldest man-made swimming pool in Tex-as), a bathhouse, and a concession stand. Two weeks after the park was purchased by the City, a storm swept away all of the structures and filled the swimming pool with dirt and debris. The City cleaned out the pool, which was miraculously free of damage and joined with the Works Progress Administration in building the rock bathhouse. Eventually, the western edge of the land was separated from the pool and named after A.J. Eilers.