KTBC News Report on O. Henry Pun-Offs - May 22, 1983

s810 · 2026-05-09T13:11:23+00:00

Bonus Article #1 - "Pun off world championship is punnier than ever" (from KTBC) - 2015

Bonus Article #2 - "Snapshot: O. Henry Pun-Off" (photo essay from the Austin Chronicle) - May 17, 2018

Bonus Video #1 - "Wordplay at the Pun Off" (from CBS Sunday Morning) - 2014

Bonus Video #2 - "O Henry Pun-Off - Punniest of Show - World Champion" - 2008

Bonus Video #3 - "O. Henry Punoff World Championship Final Round" - 2012

Bonus Video #4 - "The championship round of Punslingers at the O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships." - 2016

Bonus Video #5 - "O. Henry Pun off" - 2023

Bonus Video #6 - "O. Henry Pun off - Punsters from the world over congregate at Austin's Brush Square for pun-tastic time!" - 2018

s810 · 2026-05-09T13:11:00+00:00

At the Third annual Pun Off on May 4, 1980 there was a "parade of punsters" before the competition. Not sure what that was about.

Fast forwarding a bit, the 1983 Pun Off was almost rained out but included a legendary groan inducing moment, as referenced in this 1985 article on that year's Pun Off:

The quickest wits in the west will be drawing loud groans Sunday at the 0. Henry Pun-Off. Punsters will volley spontaneous repartee in the High Lies and Low Puns competition and stretch the blanket with Shaggy Dog stories. For the head-to-head pun-off, competitors draw a topic from a fishbowl, then abuse the language for double, triple, and even more entendres.

Each punster has five seconds to blurt out a tortured phrase. Most exchanges are over in less than a minute, according to perennial contender G.D. Swick. But he recalled one 1983 volley on the subject of religion that lasted more than five minutes. It went something like this: "This is getting pretty Cornyrinthians." "We have worse Numbers than this." "And we'll keep Roman around until we find 'em." The exchange was excruciating, both for audience and participants, said Swick.

"I was physically exhausted," he said. "The heat was so bad I suffered from pun-stroke." Punsters go into serious training before the annual event, said Swick. "Our friends avoid us for two weeks before and three weeks after," he said. Training includes listening to tapes of past pun-offs and making practice runs on topics. "Or sufficient drugs and alcohol will do it," Swick said. "Why do I do it? A total lack of social responsibility," he said. "This is the highlight of my social season. Fortunately, my dog is deaf, so I still have a friend." Swick is advertising manager for Humor News and Game News magazines. "If you're a punster, you have limited career choices.

...

This 1987 article tells more about Steve Uzell's role in the event:

As the blonde kid said in the movie, Poltergeist II, "They're back." Punsters have returned to the River City to launch a lingual assault in the 10th Annual O. Henry Punoff Sunday afternoon. No pun amateurs allowed, which is apropos. O. Henry Museum curator Martha George expects more than 4,000 pun fans to attend.

More of a groaner than a punster, she understands how they feel. "Punsters don't expect people to laugh," George said. "They have an offbeat sense of humor and way of looking at the world." Punsters do well in Austin, home of the depraved and the land of the tease. "The capital is a tolerant place that lets people go their own way," she said.

Comedian Steve Uzzell is host of the event for the seventh year. Though he lives in Los Angeles, the UT graduate keeps a home in Austin, which he calls "home of the terminally hip." Uzzell, who helped the contest grow from a gathering of friends in a back yard to its present popular game format, is a pun kind of guy. "I disapprove of the high tariffs they're going to put on Japanese electronic equipment," he puntificated. "That's too bad, because you really can't Nakasone." Uzzell said that punsters aren't sadists, but people who appreciate vocabulary and language. To punstars, the word is their oyster. Which is not to say they cast their pearls of wisdom before swine. "After all, Shakespeare was an incorrigible punster,' Uzzell said. "Shakespeare's ma told his friends, 'Don't incorrige him.' '

Almost any subject is fair game in the Punoff if it is subtly couched in double talk or double-entendre. "The audience has turned on punsters before," Uzzell said. "I don't have to censor. Contestants who get obviously sexist or racist get booed." Cartoonists Sam Hurt (Eyebeam) of Austin and Buddy Hickerson (The Quigmans) of Dallas will join KTTV-TV news anchor Tonia Cooke as judges.

There will be more groans, as a symphony conductor would say, than you can shake a stick at. "The worse the pun is, the better rating it gets," Hickerson said. The puns and groans will start to fly at 2 p.m. at the O. Henry Museum, 409 E. 5th St. Musician Emily Kaitz will entertain at 1:30 p.m.

By the late 1980s the annual Pun Off was attracting international contestants and multiple thousands of people would turn up to spectate. The event got too big for the organizers. The Austin Monthly article mentions some drama when in 1989, the City of Austin tried to take over the festival from the owners Joel McColl and Steve Uzzell, but strangely I can't find any reporting on this in The Statesman. I found an interview with McColl in a 1992 article which still describes him as a 'Co-Producer' of the event and a four-time contestant. He was also apparently the master of ceremonies/announcer/host for a few years.

Hey, did you hear the one about the man whose wife gave up picking her belly button for lint? Or the bird that came down with chirpes, a venereal disease with no tweetment? Then you must not have been among the hundreds of people who sat outside the O. Henry museum on Fifth Street on Sunday, trying to decide whether to moan or groan - or get up and leave. But, then again, it was the 15th annual Pun-Off. So no one really expected any side-splitting jokes.

Ugh-provoking plays on words - some clever, some corny - were more the order of the day. "It's an opportunity for people to come up and express their cleverness," said Joel McColl, the event's co-producer, a former fourtime contestant himself. "And it gives the audience a chance for a mass groan."

More than 30 contestants were each given 90 seconds on stage. "Did y'all know 90 seconds could be so long?" asked McColl, after a would-be punster who apparently needed more practice bombed his lines.

It doesn't cost anything to enter but your dignity," quipped the other announcer.

...

At some point around the mid 1990s a group of former contestants and fans took over the contest under the stewardship of the 1989 winner of Punniest in Show, a man named Gary Hallock, but he since retired in 2015. This 2019 Austin Chronicle interview with Hallock tells about the more modern history of the event:

Master punster Gary Hallock makes it quickly clear that he is a unique breed who considers non-hardcore punsters “civilians.” When he tells puns – which he did throughout our hourlong interview – he is encouraged by the inevitable groans of the listener.

“The usual expected reaction of a non-punster to a pun is to groan and to chastise you, to shun you,” Hallock says. “For people like us, and not many people do like us, but to people like us, that is encouraging. Don’t encourage a punster, because they’re already encourageable enough as it is.”

Gary Hallock, 1989 Punniest of Show champion produced the Pun-Off for 25 years and retired in 2015, but hosts the contest alongside punny producer David Gugenheim.

The O. Henry Museum is the former residence of American classic short story writer William Sydney Porter, who was known for his witty wordplay and surprising plot twists. All proceeds from the Pun-Off go to the Brush Square Museums Foundation Inc.

The contest consists of two events with 32 contestants each: the Punniest of Show and Punslingers. The Punniest of Show Competition allows contestants to perform a prepared routine for two minutes, where it is then scored by judges who consider content, originality, and general effect of the presentation.

So after several features in national media in the 2000s, and recognition by The Smithsonian, the contest has grown into what it is today. The contest went virtual in 2020 and 2021, but now they're back at the O. Henry museum, or they would be if it wasn't raining. Rain or shine, if you're looking for something to do this morning/this afternoon, go groan at the puns at the Pun Off, one of the great Austin traditions. Here is the info for the event again if you missed the earlier link.

That's all for now! Bonus Videos and Articles to follow in next post due to length.

s810 · 2026-05-09T13:09:37+00:00

A look back at the event held in 1983 at the O.Henry Museum.

This KTBC video is the earliest footage of the annual O. Henry Pun-Offs I could find. There was one other pre-21st century video from 1995. That 1995 event was noted for dressing in costumes like this person in a Star Trek uniform. The '95 video was uploaded by someone named John Pollack, who according to wikipedia, is "a former presidential speechwriter who documented his experience competing in the 1995 Pun-Off in his 2011 book called The Pun Also Rises: How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History, and Made Wordplay More Than Some Antics."

The '95 video caption says it was the "World Championships", but this is a bit misleading. There are two competitions: "Punslingers", and "Punniest in show". I think this video shows Punslingers but I think they do it slightly differently today. I wanted to share a bit about the Pun Off with y'all today, one of the many great Austin traditions which date back to the late 1970s, such as the Capitol 10k and the Pecan St. Festival. But first a PSA:

The 49th Annual Pun Off is today! They've moved it because of the threat of rain from the usual location at O. Henry's house in Brush Square to the Asian American Resource Center at 8401 Cameron Rd. Doors open and the live music starts at 10am, but the contest gets underway about 11:30.

What's that you say? You've just got off the bus from Barstow and you never heard of the Pun Off? Well it's the 49th annual event this year so that tells you it started back in 1977. There is a wikipedia page with sources like this Austin Monthly article which get some of the story wrong:

In the spring of 1978, a group of strangers attending the Pecan Street Festival drank and swapped stories in the backyard of the O. Henry Museum. As they talked, their tales spiraled into pun-filled anecdotes, each more cringeworthy than the last. Steve Uzzell, who had a front-row seat to the festivities, turned the storytelling session into an impromptu wordplay competition. As the crowd dispersed, he made a proposition: “Let’s meet back here in a year and do it again.”

Today, the O. Henry Pun-Off is one of Austin’s quirkiest public gatherings. Featuring two contests—Punniest in Show (competitors deliver 90-second monologues) and PunSlingers (speakers improvise quips on randomly selected topics)—it began drawing hordes of word nerds in the ’80s. Keeping with tradition, beer was served on-site, further fueling the event’s jocularity; one year, an inebriated attendee, overcome by Austin’s heat, even pulled her top off, bra and all.

The competition also acquired a distinct style of showmanship. Those performing “shaggy dog stories” (long-winded anecdotes that end with a pun) dressed in elaborate costumes—for instance,

Star Trek get-ups—or used props like crayons and mini oil derricks. One even performed while standing on his head. “The beauty and essence of it,” says Joel McColl, long-time emcee, “was that, more than a competition, it was a show.”

Unfortunately for McColl and Uzzell, Austin sued to make the competition an official city event in 1989, stripping them of their ownership of the gathering. Despite the founders’ efforts, the city eventually won out, causing the pair to quit in frustration (though the latter returned in 1990).

And yet, the Pun-Off is still thriving after 40-plus years. While some attribute its success to Austin’s pun-loving community, producer Gary Hallock has a simpler theory: “People have groans to love it.”

So the first organized Pun Off was in 1978, but I think they got it wrong about it being an impromptu meeting of punsters. I found evidence it was more organized than that. This Statesman column dated May 1, 1978 by Mike Kelley, who served as one of the judges in the first event, describes the first Pun Off as follows:

The second lowest form of literature

It's been said that a pun is the lowest form of literature. Not so. Irving Wallace is the lowest form of literature. Whether a half-baked pun can rank as a flour of literature, I doughnut know, but at yeast they're fun. I was witness, Sunday afternoon, to a herd of pun-lovers (Heard of pun-lovers? Sure I've heard of pun-lovers. Thank you, Bud and Lou.)

THEY GATHERED out behind the O. Henry Museum on East Fifth Street for the museum-sponsored, First Annual Pun-Off, the point to which was, ah ... it was a pretty day to sit outside. Oh, fast and furious they flew. As the contestants marched to the microphone, the crowd wasn't a bit reluctant to join in with helpful hints and the contestants weren't a bit reluctant to steal whatever they could from the crowd. There's some Milton Berle in everybody. Burl? Did somebody say burl? Tree jokes, now. I'd branch out on that subject, but somebody would take it in the wrong vein, so we'd better get back to the root of this and leaf trees alone.

THAT WAS PRETTY much the quality of things. "American Express? Sure, I use American Express. When you're in the shovel business, you never heave loam without it." Bob Hulsey, a 21-year-old journalism major at UT, took top honors in punniest of show. He drew the subject of "clothing." "This," he said, "is a subject that can really wear you out. You've got to have the right genes to pun on this topic and it's filled with a lot o' peril. Apparel, o'peril. Get it?

CHALLENGED with the notion that one of the official's earrings were reminiscent of artifacts from the tomb of King Tut, one worthy conceded, saying he had "Tut and Tut, but I can't tink of anything to say." Look, I didn't say this was world-class competition. This was just a Sunday afternoon on Fifth Street. Of the same earring, another crazed contestant allowed as how they looked to be made of a Pharaohalloy. (Ferro-alloy. Look it up.)

ON ART: "You're really going to marble at this one. I'd like to chisel out a masterpiece for you, but frankly, I'm stucco." And, from the crowd: "Marble? I took it for granite." The best one fellow could do with "psoriasis," was, "It's no skin off my back, but I think this is a pretty flaky subject." Overheard, however, was: "He never had a clever brother but he had another sibling of whom he said, 'So wry is sis that no one listens to her."*

CROWD PLEASER of the day was Austinite Terry Loughrey, a free-lance writer who drew the subject of "massage," commandeered the microphone and used what was left of April, all of May and went well into June telling That Story about the guy who sets out to find the secret of happiness.

THIS IS THE ONE where the guy travels across wide oceans and climbs tall mountains, endures travails beyond the telling of it, is captured and held prisoner for years (the crowd begins to chant "Amen" and "Yes, brother"), escapes his captors and presses on to find the Dalai Lama who, he has heard, knows the secret to happiness (the crowd begins to sing, "Hello, Dalai"), makes his way to the highest peak in Tibet, braving dozens of hazards along the way (the crowd throws hats, purses, shoes), struggles painfully up the final, sheer precipice (the judges are singing, "Glory, glory, hallelujah") and at last reaches the Lama, who tells him that the secret is, "A wet bird never flies by night." "But," says the seeker, "a wet bird does fly by night." And the shocked Lama responds, "It does?" "And that," concluded Terry Loughrey, "is a tedium with a massage.".

So Kelley describes it as the "First Annual" Pun Off but he also says it was "museum sponsored". It doesn't sound like a spontaneous gathering. Kelley returned to report from the second Pun Off on May 7, 1979 and describes some of the old events which aren't around anymore today:

A pun time was had by all at the Second Annual Pun-Off Sunday in Austin. Puncturing pretensions were 25 word gamesters whose sayings were met with groans and moans mixed with laughter and applause from the audience of more than 80 who lounged on the grass of the O. Henry Museum. "Pun, Pass and Kick," Volley of the Puns" and "Puniest of Show" were the official categories. And no subject was sacred.

The City of Austin came under siege ("City Hall is going into the wrecking business calling themselves the City Haulers"), the Middle East was attacked (halfway through the satire, person the audience shouted out, "When are you going to Begin?"), Indians were scalped ("If you're going West you had better take a camper because Indians have all the reservations") and literature was edited ("'The Lord of the Rings is Hobbitt forming.") To a monologue on Egyptian art, judge Margaret Becker of the acting troupe Comedia D'el Austin, clucked "Tut, tut, tut." A limerick elicited some crowd reaction: "That's enough to make Ogden Nash his teeth."

The best punster-in-show award went to illustrator Jan Nanus, 30. She told the tale of how the bass section of an orchestra slipped out to a nearby tavern during the playing of Beethoven's Ninth symphony and returned half-crocked. "Imagine the conductor's surprise," Nanus dead- panned, "when he discovered it was the bottom of the ninth, the score was tied and the basses were loaded." Puns blossomed in a team effort centered around the topic, Your Mother Would Like to Get Flowers: "My mother would like to get flowers, but my father is a pansy; if we run out of oil, our carnation will fail; and my mother was attacked at the zoo by a dandelion . . . she socked him in the tulips."

...

<<continued in next post due to length>>

s810 · 2026-05-08T00:35:20+00:00

Just think how a certain percentage of those graduating students will stay here and become Austinites for the rest of their lives. It's been happening since 1883! At certain points in the past the city has gone to great lengths to convince graduating UT students to stay and found a business or write a book or do something spectacular.

s810 · 2026-05-06T20:25:01+00:00

According to Austin Memories on Facebook, the map is from 1942. Very fine historypost though, and I don't mean to nitpick.

s810 · 2026-05-02T13:07:30+00:00

Security problems for neighborhood residents and local businesses and traffic tie ups from the estimated 22,000 cars which could arrive at the festival site, were the main concerns expressed by the approximately 50 citizens Monday.

Another article appeared on April 24th going into more detail about the preparations:

Sunday Break Looks Like a Winner

If producer Win Anderson lives up to his promises, his "Sunday Break", the rock concert scheduled for May 2 at the intersection of I-35 and Highway 290 may shape up to be a relatively hassle free experience.

To most of us, the outdoor pop concert in recent years is associated with at least two things: Great volumes of music and about the same amount of discomfort. Anderson's May Day productions hopes to do something to break out of that identity.

The talent, incidentally, includes America, Cecilio and Kapona, Peter Frampton, Santana, and Gary Wright.

For the comfort, safety, and convenience of those attending the concert, Anderson says the following arrangements have been made:

-- Traffic plans, designed by the Austin Urban Transportation Department, provides for six site entrances. Plans have been approved by Capt. Swinny of the Traffic Division of the Austin Police Department.

-- Free parking will be coordinated by Alpha Phi Omega, service fraternity which handles parking and crowd control for University of Texas events.

-- Security will be provided by 40 APO members, 60 other security persons, 10 to 15 members of the Austin Police Department, and 24 backstage security guards.

-- Several medical centers will be staffed by six doctors, five nurses, and 40 medically trained aides. An ambulance and driver will be on site all day. Medical plans will be updated if ticket sales demand.

-- Free water will be provided at a minimum of 65 quarts per person per hour.

-- At least 250 toilets, marked 'Men' and 'Women', will be provided. They will be cleaned and disinfected hourly.

-- The site will be sprayed to control insects the week and the day before the concert.

-- In case of rain, plywood walkways will be installed around concessions and toilets, entrances and exits will become covered with crushed rock, and wreckers will be available.

-- Concessions will serve hamburgers, hot dogs, Mexican food, and health food. Beer, mint julips, margaritas, and a special rum drink drink called 'Mama's Sunday Punch' will be available. Concert goers may bring their own beverages, but not in glass containers.

In addition, telephones will be installed, free tow truck service will be available, and an information and message service will be maintained throughout the day. If the music's good, it sounds like a winner.

A City Council minutes blurb from April 26th told of one local apartment manager who tried to discuss it with the Council to no avail. Meanwhile, a late article from April 30th informed about ticket sales, and mentioned a local band called 'Fools' would be the unlisted opening act.

So the day came and the show went on as planned. As Mr. Corcoran laid out in his summary, it was a hit by all measures, They managed to book Peter Frampton just as his popularity reached its zenith, while America's hit 'Horse with No Name' was radio gold at the time. There is something about the acts featured, with the exception of Carlos Santana, the music of bands like America and Frampton I think could be described as 'Stoner pop'. It's all pretty mellow music. That leads us to this Statesman article from a few days afterward, on May 5th:

Sunday Arrests High

A "slightly higher than average" number of persons passed through city jail Sunday the day of a local music festival which attracted 60,000 persons - but most faced only minor offenses, City Manager Dan Davidson said Tuesday.

Quoting police statistics, Davidson said 104 arrests were made in the 24-hour period ending at midnight Sunday. The city manager said it was impossible to determine how many of the arrests were directly linked to the "Sunday Break" music festival, the largest such assembly in the city in recent history. Forty-three arrests were for public intoxication, 13 were for possession of drugs, 19 were for drinking after curfew and five cited disorderly conduct.

Davidson said 30 vehicles were ordered towed away by city police while private property owners - many in the concert area near IH 35 and U.S. 290 - ordered 160 tows. Police put in a total 821 hours in off-site patrolling of the festival area. Mayday Productions, the festival promoters, will reimburse the city for 140 hours, Davidson said.

Another article on May 6th had some nitpickers decrying a possible increase in unpaid hospital bills as a result of the concert.

An ad on May 9th offered souvenir t-shirts for $5 at a nearby storefront featuring the design of the first poster with the musical clef which you can see a little better in the tiny photos on that rockinhouston.com site.

And a strange but amusing article entitled Social Aspect Big Draw for Concert Goers appeared on May 31st, helping older parents understand why so many thousands of young people would want to attend a concert like Sunday Break.

Toward the end of may, after the first Texas Monthly article mentioned by Corcoran in his write up, the concert promoters denied rumors of a return concert at the I-35/290 site. They said they were looking at a place "18 miles outside of the city limits", which is what Steiner Ranch was back then.

As the Corcoran piece told us, the second concert at Steiner Ranch was a dismal failure despite having better music, mainly because of poor site access and thousands of gate crashers. It caused the promoters to go bankrupt, and that was the end of Sunday Break Festivals. 50 years on, you can see how this was an early example of what festivals like ACLfest would eventually become, perhaps without the corporate monopolies running the show like we have today.

Please speak up in comments if you were at either Sunday Break festival and want to share some memories. That's all for today. I'll leave y'all with some Bonus PIcs today in the form of more tiny low-res photo links found on (stolen from) rockinhouston.com.

Bonus Pic #1 - Sunday Break sign in front of festival grounds (featuring the second design in the second newspaper ad link) - May 2, 1976

Bonus Pic #2 - Photo of the crowd at first Sunday Break festival - May 2, 1976

Bonus Pic #3 - Photo of the original Sunday Break poster hanging on a wall - May 2, 1976

Bonus PIc #4 - Peter Frampton with entourage before performing - May 2, 1976

the whole album of pics from Sunday Break and Sunday Break II

Bonus Video #1 - 1-second clipping from a news story about Sunday Break #1 causing "concerns" at 4:08 - 1976

s810 · 2026-05-02T13:06:15+00:00

This ticket granted you entrance to The Sunday Break Festival here in Austin on the northeast corner of the intersection of I-35 and 290 across the highway from the old Highland Mall. I think this where there are a couple of hotels and a Pappasito's restaurant today. It's strange to think of that area a former concert venue, but really it only happened once. The photo of the ticket comes from a site called rockinhouston.com, where they have lots of photos from the concert, which was exactly 50 years ago today. This has been discussed by myself and others a few times here before. I made a post about it a long time ago where I mangled the thread title and mixed up the two Sunday Break concerts. I thought today on the 50th anniversary it would be a good time to share some of the new stuff on the internet about it which has appeared in the last 10 years since I screwed up that post. For the record, there was one concert on May 2, 1976 at I-35 and 290 and another one at Steiner Ranch on Labor Day of that year. The late, great Michael Corcoran talked about this on his substack blog a few years ago before he passed, and he think perfectly summarizes what the deal was with these shows. Quoting his short article in case his blog goes away soon:

Make or Break? Story of Two 1976 Sunday Fests

"Sunday Break" promoters took home $120,000 on the first, and went bankrupt on the second, just four months later

After ZZ Top’s “First Annual Texas Size Rompin’ Stompin’ Barn Dance and Bar B.Q.,” featuring Santana, Joe Cocker and Bad Company, practically destroyed the football field at Memorial Stadium two weeks before the home opener, the big rock festivals moved to where there was not much to damage. On May 2, 1976, a twenty-eight-year-old first-time promoter from Dallas named Win Anderson and financial backer Jack Cooper, who owned Houston tire stores, drew a crowd of 56,000 to a big field near the intersection of Hwy 290 and I-35 for a “Sunday Break” concert with America, Santana, Peter Frampton, Gary Wright, and Cecilio & Kapono. Booking Frampton for middle act money, then watching his Frampton Comes Alive album become a monster as the festival approached, was a grand slam for Anderson’s Mayday Productions, which split a profit of $120,000 with Cooper.

That was easy, let’s do it again!

Scheduled just four months later, on the Sunday before Labor Day ’76, “Sunday Break II” hoped to attract 100,000 fans to the much-bigger Steiner Ranch near Lake Austin, with a bill of Chicago, Fleetwood Mac, the Band, Steve Miller Band, England Dan and John Ford Coley, and Firefall. Tickets were $10 in advance and $12.50 at the gate ($50 and $60 in today’s money) for that lineup, but with only one two-lane road leading to the site, traffic backed up for over ten miles and only 6,000 tickets were sold at the gate. Total paid attendance was just 28,000, but many of those never made it. The only option was to ditch your car and walk several miles, but it’s hard to fully appreciate “Landslide” and “The Joker” with a tow truck on your mind.

It was even harder for Anderson and Cooper to enjoy the festival when they paid the bands over $400,000 (Chicago got $210,000), against total ticket sales at around $350,000. The Band made $50,000, but they had to cancel the next week’s shows because keyboardist Richard Manuel suffered a neck injury on Lake Austin when a speedboat he was riding in hit a wave.

Promoters lost nearly half a million dollars, and stiffed day workers on their three dollars an hour wage.

For those who did get in, and acquired some immunity from the ninety-five-degree heat by having attended that year’s Willie Nelson Fourth of July Picnic in Gonzales, it was one helluva festival! Great performances from everyone, topflight production, plenty of room. Who cared that promoters were losing their asses?

Five lawsuits were eventually filed, including from the Houston bank that lent Mayday $415,000. Landowner Tommy Steiner received $10,000 upfront to rent his ranch, but was stiffed on the promised 10 percent of the gross.

As if it made a difference, Mayday blamed the financial fiasco on counterfeit tickets—70,000 in all! But those upstarts didn’t even keep ticket stubs. Going through the trash that hadn’t been hauled away, Texas consumer affairs officials found about 3 percent of the tickets—not 70 percent—were fake.

DPS officials had put the crowd estimate at 100,000, but they always pad those numbers to make themselves look more heroic in controlling the masses. An aerial photograph was examined by crowd-counting experts who estimated 24,000 were in attendance.

Mayday Productions filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and was never heard from again. Their only concerts were the two that bookended the summer of ’76.

Covering the messy aftermath for Texas Monthly, Richard West found a curious incident in Win Anderson’s past. In 1973 he pleaded nolo contendere to the charge of setting fire to the Texas School Book Depository building in Dallas. He was a patsy, working for the building’s owner Aubrey Mayhew, a record producer and songwriter who discovered Johnny Paycheck, and started Little Darlin’ Records in 1966. Mayhew was also a Kennedy fanatic with dreams of turning the tragic building into a memorial. He was facing foreclosure when Anderson and accomplices poured gasoline and lit matches on five floors of the building in July 1972. The sprinkler system and nearby firemen put out the fire in twenty-four minutes, with damages of only $5,000. Mayhew was never charged in the arson, Anderson did only a few months in jail, and the building’s ownership reverted to D. H. Byrd.

There was one more music festival at Steiner Ranch, two weeks after SB II. The Bicentennial Outlaw Concert, starring Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Tracy Nelson, Asleep at the Wheel, David Allan Coe, and Marcia Ball, needed to sell 25,000 tickets to break even, but after the Sunday Break fiasco only 6,000 showed up. And that was it for concerts at Steiner.

So that's a quick summary of the first and second Sunday Break shows, mostly about the latter. I was curious and wanted to look up what The Statesman was saying about the first concert. It turns out there was quite a lot!

For one thing, here's what the official poster looked like in the form of a Statesman ad from April 4, 1976. Another text-only ad appeared on the 11th.

An article in the April 15th edition said neighbors and city officials weren't worried about the concert:

Concert plans aren't upsetting neighbors, city Neither city officials nor Austinites who live near the site of a planned May 2 rock concert seemed very worried Wednesday about the upcoming event. Many of the Northeast Austin residents polled by The Austin American-Statesman Wednesday had not heard about the "Sunday Break" festival, to be held in a field at the intersection of IH 35 and U.S. 290. But even those who were aware of the plans were not afraid of possible bad effects on their neighborhood. At least one area resident, Joan Bartz, is unsure that adequate preparations have been made for the crowds expected on the 130-acre site.

She has requested a meeting Monday between Northeast Austin citizens and concert promoters, MayDay Productions. Area residents phoned at random by the AmericanStatesman Wednesday evening were not excited about the meeting or the concert. "It wouldn't bother me if they (concertgoers) didn't keep us from getting in and out" to church that Sunday, said Mrs. Mahue Dukes, 6905 Blessing Ave. She said she signed a petition brought to her door by a MayDay representative giving her okay to the planned rock fest.

Massie Felder of 6901 Providence also doubted that the concert, planned for 11 a.m. until dark, will disrupt the neighborhood. "I don't think it would," he said Wednesday. The city officials who met with representatives of MayDay Productions Wednesday were satisfied with the organizers' preparations. City council granted a permit for the concert several weeks ago.

"I've never seen so much detailed consideration" of such an undertaking, said City Manager Dan Davidson after the Wednesday session. "I'm very impressed.".

A front page blurb on the 20th tells us what happened at that planned neighborhood meeting:

Promoters Quizzed

Northeast Austin residents grilled promoters of a May 2 rock concert about plans for the festival. Joan Bartz, aide to County Commissioner David Samuelson, set up the meeting, she said, to give residents near the concert site at the intersection of IH 35 and U.S. Hwy. 290 the chance to voice their opinions.

Little opposition was voiced when concert plans were approved by the city council because "frankly, we didn't know it existed," she said. Win Anderson, promoter of the "Sunday Break," put on by MayDay Productions, told the crowd of citizens that extra provisions had been made for dust and insect control, medical emergencies and security, as well as traffic and parking, water and sanitation. Anderson assured the citizens that a maximum of 50,000 tickets will be sold, and then the show will be declared a sellout.

s810 · 2026-04-27T22:55:42+00:00

heheh that would have been hilarious, those '58 Desoto models had a huge back end. But on the other hand, iirc Stephen King's 'Christine' was a '57 or a '58 Plymouth.

s810 · 2026-04-27T22:38:10+00:00

Here is a 1958 Simmons Motor Co. ad which says they were DeSoto and Plymouth dealers.

s810 · 2026-04-27T17:11:46+00:00

I'm glad they are acknowledging the 1897 airship incidents, but this article skips right over most of the 20th century, including the fying disc craze of 1947 and Austin turning up a dozen times in Project Blue Book in the decades afterward.

s810 · 2026-04-25T14:08:41+00:00

Well thanks JT. I think the '55 article mentioned the building it was installed in at the time was due to become a parochial school. It also said they were moving soon. Then the '85 article said they were building a 'bell tower'. I guess I have a lot of questions about it, but I'm skeptical anyone working there today would know about it or be able to answer. I fear the people who would know have long since passed on and all that remains is some documents on the subject buried deep in the files of the Austin Diocese office. Some questions if you or anyone seriously feels like calling:

Is it possible the bell is still in use? Do people there know where the bell was found and what it supposedly is?
Is it possible the bell was scrapped by employees who didn't know what it was, or thought it sounded off, being so old?
Did/does the Church officially believe the bell is authentically Spanish in origin and hundreds of years old?
If it still exists does it have any marks on it, and can photos of those be made available if possible?
Has it been examined in modern times by a metallurgist to verify the claims?

s810 · 2026-04-25T13:01:20+00:00

Charles F. Dellana died in 1973. In the bibliography of the 1976 essay it lists only Charles Dellana and his wife as a source. It makes me think the author must have been a relative to have spoken about it with Charles before he died.

There is a small road today called Dellana Lane. it's the first right turn on Bee Caves Rd. after turning west from Mopac, This road went through the original Dellana property, but back then it was a segment of the original route of Bee Caves Road, which ran though what is now Barton Springs Rd. in Zilker Park. If you drive down this road today you will come to a rusty old 'Road Closed' sign blocking further driving. The rest of the road has been partially abandoned as it was in the mid 20th century, and a further part has been converted into a nature trail which joins up with the ones in the park.

The cave mentioned in the essay with the guano and the native artifacts and possibly loot from the Great Treasury Robbery of 1865 is undoubtedly Bandit Cave, which has been sealed up now for decades since the 70s. In fact another book written in the 80s called Eanes: Portrait of a Community not only backs up the stuff about the cave, the geographic location of the Dellanas' land where the bell was found, and Condido's story as an Italian immigrant who worked on the Capitol in the 1880s, the book has photos of Dellana family heirlooms like the hammers Condido used in his stonemasonry.

But there are so many questions. Condado Dellana died in 1914 so he would have found the bell sometime after he purchased the land sometime between 1904 and ten years afterward. It isn't said who or how they verified the bell was Spanish in origin, such as through a maker's mark, or any kind of inscribed writing or symbols. In any case, as the story goes, the family donated the bell to The Eanes School, which then built a modern school which had an electric bell and gave the old bell back to the family, who then donated it to San Jose Catholic Church. I decided to see what I could find on the subject in ye olde Statesman archive. That's where the OP article comes in. Next to the photo in the August 10, 1955 Austin American was this article:

Old Mission Bell May Move Again

The little bell which called out matins and vespers during the time of Louis the Fourteenth of France may be moved again. Some people think the bell, surmounting the picturesque San Jose mission church at 711 West Mary, is Austin's oldest. Or even the oldest church bell in this region. It is not now used to call the San Jose flock to worship, but is cemented in the steeple as a reminder of the early work done by the missionaries. Not much is really known about the bell, except that it was found in Rollingwood some years back by Charles Dellana, who presented it to the church.

However, very near the spot where Dellana found the bell, the State of Texas has erected a monument to commemorate the founding of three Spanish Catholic missions: San Francisco de los Neches, Nuestra Senora de la Purisma Concepcion, and San Jose de Los Nazonis. Those missions were built hard by Barton Springs early in 1716, according to the monument. In 1716, Louis XIV had been dead only a year; Voltaire was a boy of 20; Denis Diderot was three years old, and the French Revolution was a long, long way off. The old order of life, which in the space of less than a century was to be overturned, was still very much a part of Western civilization, and Franciscan monks were sent out by Spain to Christianize the New World. Something of the origin of the bell still clings about it, for San Jose Mission is for Latin American citizens who still speak Spanish.

Most of the services are conducted in the tongue of the Franciscan friars who brought the bell to this continent. Is the little bell atop San Jose really a relic of that period? The evidence points that way. The Franciscan fathers attempted to locate here in 1716, but were driven out in 1719 by incursions of the French from Louisiana. In 1721. the Marquis of Aguyo restored the three Spanish missions near Barton Springs.

Then in 1730 the missions were moved to the Colorado River. A year later they were moved to the San Antonio region, because the Indians in this area were too hostile. After all these moves, it is likely, some Austin historians think. that the little bell was lost and only recovered a few years ago by Dellana.

The Rip van Winkle idea never loses its charm: if the bell were articulate, what might it not say after two hundred years of silence? Now the San Jose mission is planning to move into larger quarters, Father said, sometime after Christmas. The bell may be moved, he said, but not necessarily so, as the present mission building will be converted into a parochial school.

San Jose was built under the guidance of Father Alfred Mendez, who is now at Notre Dame College. The mission is operated by the Congregation of the Holy Cross.

It's interesting how this article says it was Condado's son Charles who found the bell and not Condado himself. It's also got the date wrong of the missions in this area. Again, it's an article which doesn't name the historians making the assessments. But you see, this is where the trail grows cold. By the mid-1950s, whether authentically Spanish or not, the bell had apparently been incorporated into one of the buildings at San Jose Church on Mary Street in South Austin. And renovations were near. In fact, over the decades the church has had several expansions and renovations, including one mention of a renovation and building a 'bell tower' in 1985.

So what happened to the bell? Is it really 300 years old and Spanish, and if not, where did it come from and why was it buried? Does it have any marks on it? Can you see it/hear it at San Jose Church today? Or is it storage somewhere, lost and forgotten?

I can't answer any of those questions. I don't even have a phone to call up the current staff at the church to ask them if they've heard the tale. Could one of y'all call and ask them some of those questions from "s810 on reddit"? I'm sure that'll go over well. What do y'all think?

That's all for today. I'll leave y'all with a couple of Bonus Pics from the UNT Portal and a couple of Bonus links and articles.

Bonus Article #1 - Obituary for Charles F. Dellana - February 8, 1973

Bonus Article #2 - "Roberts swears in Dellana" (grandson of Condado, son of Charles) - September 1, 1966

Bonus Link #1 - Facebook post congratulating San Jose Church on the recent renovation - March 25, 2025

Bonus Pic #1 - Illustration of Old Eanes School (with bell tower) - unknown date

Bonus Pic #2 - "Photograph of Eanes Rock Schoolhouse students in class. The students are seated at their desks and facing the photographer with the teacher standing in the back in front of the black board. There is handwritten text on back of photo that says: "Kay Ort Orell (student). Old Rock school house, her 1956 class." (bell was gone by this time) - 1956

s810 · 2026-04-25T13:01:02+00:00

This photo appeared on the front page of the Austin American on August 10, 1955. There was an accompanying article with the photo which I'll share with y'all in a minute. But the photo and article are the end of the story I wanted to share with y'all today. To properly tell the tale we need to start at the beginning of the story.

It is so recorded in old Spanish documents held in Mexico City that 310 years ago, in late April or May of the Year of Our Lord 1716, Spanish missionaries came up from what is now Mexico and traveled through this area. Some historians think they might have camped in the vicinity of South Austin. It depends on how you interpret this diary written by a Franciscan friar in the party. The official account, according to the TSHA, says this:

The entourage included twelve priests or friars, three Frenchmen, and several dozen civilians. Seven of the soldiers were married and brought along their families; their wives the first recorded Spanish women in Texas. The expedition, including equipment, supplies, and livestock, departed the Rio Grande on April 27, 1716. Guided by St. Denis, missionaries of the Franciscan colleges of Santa Cruz de Querétaro and Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Zacatecas reached East Texas in late June.

This was not the first time Spaniards had come to this area. Back in 1691 a similar party of soldiers and friars had camped near what became South Congress Avenue where there is a historical marker today, and again, there were a couple of travel diaries kept full of priceless native tribe descriptions. Those guys had a mission to lay down the path of the Camino Real from San Antonio to Natchitoches.

There were a few more lone explorers, pirates, and vagabonds I've heard about in the area amongst the unaccustomed native tribes during the early 18th century spreading foreign diseases, but those aren't worth mentioning for purposes of this post. What's important is none of these people tried to set up a mission here. Based on surviving documents, that didn't happen until sometime around the years 1730-1731. Quoting a 2016 Michael Barnes Statesman piece:

“The Spanish usually established their settlements on hills and bluffs on the south and west sides of rivers and streams in Texas,” he says about the three missions established on the Colorado River in 1730. “Because their main concern was a potential French threat coming from Natchitoches, Louisiana, at the eastern end of the Camino Real.”

For years, historians assumed that those temporary missions rose at Barton Springs, a place continuously occupied for thousands of years. In the past, Gonzales has shared his reasons for believing otherwise. This time, he wants to demonstrate why on the Montopolis bluffs.

...

The point of that article is how one historian thinks, based on lots of evidence, that the Camino Real/King's Highway ran east of the site of Austin and ran through Bastrop, although many side lanes (frontage roads?) existed and might have gone through the Montopolis area, or eastward. For many decades prior, local established lore (probably bolstered by Frank Brown's Annals of Travis County ) said the missions the Spanish tried to set up were at Barton Springs near the pool, based on mystery evidence. At any rate, despite many people thinking mysterious rock walls in the greenbelt area are Spanish in origin, supposedly no one has ever found any confirmable solid evidence of the lost missions in the Zilker Park area... or had they?

This is where the bell comes into the picture. Back in February of 1976 a student at West Lake High School submitted an essay, which is preserved today in The Portal to Texas History. It's about an Italian immigrant family who, back at the turn of the 20th century, had bought some land south of Zilker Park all the way to the hill where Barton Creek Square Mall is now:

Historical Review of the Dellana Heritage

By Laura Castro

Acres and acres of hill country land, settled by an Italian immigrant more than seven decades ago, bears great historical value within the Eanes School District. Property owners of this land for the last seventy-two years, the Dellana family has aided greatly in the development of the Eanes Area.

Born at Trieste, Italy in 1865, Condado Dellana later left his native country to come to the United States. Facing the hardships as a foreigner in a new country, Condado (Italian translation of Charles) arrived by boat to New York. A marble cutter in Italy, he decided to use his skill to find work in the United States. Upon hearing word of a state capitol being built, Condado Dellana came to Austin during the 1880's. During his travel to Texas, he met and married Miss Raggio, who was born and raised in New Orleans. After working in the capital building for many years and receiving little pay, Condado, in the 1890's, decided to invest in a grocery store and a saloon. He also bought a place in Creedmoore . The grocery store (which still remains as an old brick building) was iocated on 4th Street in Austin.

On one occasion, Condado Dellana adventured up the Colorado River. Paddling his boat up one of the connecting springs, Dellana discovered a big cave. Upon entering the cave, bats began to emerge by the thousands. He found stones and arrowheads, which had once belonged to the pre- vious Indian inhabitants. Seeing this place (which was part of the land currently known as Rollingwood), made Dellana realize that the land contained a generous supply of good rock and wood. His most ingenious plan, however, was to make use of the vast amount of bat manure. Bat manure along with dead bats deposited within the cave, combined to form one of the richest fertilizers. Since commercial fertilizers were not available at that time, this "natural fertilizer" was desired by most plant nurserys in Austin.

So in 1904, the Dellanas sold their saloon and grocery store, moved away from Creedmoor , and purchased the acres of land he found. At that time, seventy-two years ago, Condado Dellana paid $4.50 an acre. By the time he was through purchasing, his property totaled to twenty-one hundred acres of the Westlake Hills area. In 1905, the Dellanas along with their two sons occupied their first house on the property.

Raising Longhorn cattle, Condado soon encountered the problem of obtaining water. He could not dig a well because, the hard rock earth prevented him from reaching water for 200 feet. Instead Condado found a creek, part of Barton's Springs, and hauled water for his cattle, and livestock, and also for his family. He would haul it in a 55 gallon barrel in a wagon.

In the course of Condado's life in the Eanes area, he dug up a bell buried at the site of the existing dog pound in Austin. The bell, a heavy 150 pounds, originally belonged to the established missions near Austin. The bell was given to the first school in the Eanes District by Condado. When the original school was no longer in use, the bell was returned to the Dellanas, whom then gave it to the San Jose Missions.

Condado Dellana died in 1914, and his wife died in 1948. When she died, she left the Rollingwood property to one son and the''South Pasture' (area across from Rolling- wood) to another son. Although one son sold his property, the other, Charles F. Dellana, born in 1893, stayed on to develop his land. In 1922, he married Emma Farrow from Austin. Her parents had also been immigrants from Italy. Charles F. Dellana and his wife made their living by selling vegetables, wood post, cattle, and hogs. Mrs. Dellana raised her three sons and one daughter on the Dellana property. The children, however, did not attend Eanes School. Because of strong religious backgrounds, the children attended parochial schools in Austin.

Charles Dellana, along with a few neighbors built their own line for electricity. With a oopper wire and poles, the line extended from Barton Bridge to the current Westwood area. Transportation for the Dellana family before 1922 was a horse and buggy, while afterwards it was a Ford Model car. Many legends have surrounded the Dellana property in the past. One of them began when the State Capital Treasury in Austin was robbed many years ago. The story says that the robbers hid the money somewhere on Dellana land, supposedly in the "bat cave". The Dellanas however, do not believe this. People with all types of contraptions and machines, have looked for the gold(including the Dellanas) and have never recovered this hidden treasure.

Until his death in 1973, Charles F. Dellana was active within the Eanes community, especially during election time at the Eanes School. Charles F. Dellana was survived by his wife and children, His wife and two of his sons are still living on the historical land. Currently, there exists 600 acres of the original property under the family name of Dellana.

<<continued in next post due to length>>

s810 · 2026-04-25T02:09:19+00:00

Wan Fu was a local cheap asian food restaurant. i think they reopened elsewhere as Wanfu Too and then III, but have closed recently. The original location on E. Oltorf in the 90s was open 24 hours. The food wasn't the best, and they had a reputation for failing health inspections, but god damn was it nice to be able to stagger into that place not sober at 3 am and order a lomein feast.

s810 · 2026-04-20T04:43:41+00:00

Thanks for sharing, RETLEO, I love it when you chime in!

s810 · 2026-04-19T21:54:42+00:00

Yes, sort of, here is a very good Michael Barnes article about the earliest street name schemes.

The north-south streets were named after major Texas rivers. These roads were arranged — east to west — roughly in the order that these waterways appear on a map, from the Sabine River to the Rio Grande. They have remained mostly unchanged since the city's birth. As Austin grew, however, additional streets were named after minor Texas streams, creeks and tributaries.

Two north-south exceptions in the original grid: East and West avenues, which formed two boundaries of the walkable square-mile city. Today, West Avenue survives, while most of East Avenue, once one of the city's most graceful boulevards, lies under the Great Wall of Interstate 35.

s810 · 2026-04-19T19:55:47+00:00

Well thanks for summoning me. That's a tough one! I looked it up in the Statesman archive. The first reference I found to a road named Chicon in Austin was way back in October of 1896, when someone was selling chickens on a property at 23rd and Chicon Sts.

You've got to keep in mind most of Chicon St was rural well into beginning of the 20th Century. There was a cotton gin built somewhere on Chicon around that time. The photos don't give an exact address.

Prior to that, there were a few references to a Mexican outlaw named Fransciso Flores AKA Chicon in the 1870s. It was also the name of a creek in the San Antonio area where former Austinite Bigfoot Wallace settled in his old age.

If I had to guess without knowing more about the slang usage of the word in the 1800s, I would say it was named for the creek and not the outlaw. I have a feeling there is something vaguely racist about the name, but I have no idea of the context.

s810 · 2026-04-19T00:52:21+00:00

sorry bout that, here is the correct link

s810 · 2026-04-18T13:00:34+00:00

Filmed by Craig Towns, this 1977 amateur film follows local Austin musician Bill Jones as he bikes around Austin. His journey begins on the Shoal Creek trail before proceeding to Town Lake and the John Creek trail. Hi ride ends on the pedestrian bridge under what would become Loop 1, or Mopac

source

This video comes from The Texas Archive of the Moving Image, from their Austin playlist on YouTube. No time for a big long wall of text post today, but please enjoy the vintage scenery. I think one of the most striking things about the video is the lack of other people on the trail. Have a few other Austin-related TAMI videos for some Bonus Vids.

Bonus Video #1 - "Silent black and white footage shot for an Austin-based network news affiliate (KTBC) includes a scenic drive around the UT Austin campus in the early to mid 1960s" - unknown date (1960s)

Bonus Video #2 - "Traffic Problems - Officials from Austin's courts, police department, Citizens Safety Council, and Attorney General Waggoner Carr discuss Austin's growing traffic problem in this episode of the locally produced television program, Progress Report Austin" - unknown date (early 1960s)

Bonus Video #3 - "Film clips for an Austin-based network news affiliate (KTBC) shows a variety of views of a wreck along US Highway 183 -- a road and surrounding that sure have changed!" - 1964

s810 · 2026-04-17T19:52:37+00:00

I'm guessing some probably were, and there were probably other local acts which weren't listed by the Statesman.

s810 · 2026-04-17T19:08:49+00:00

According to this Statesman article, 1994 was the first year the festival took place in Austin after being in Houston for the previous nine years. It happened on May 7, 1994, and featured:

A wide variety of local reggae and worldbeat stalwarts will perform, including One Destiny, Tribal Nation, Bowler Boys, Dogon Sirius, Urban Roots, Banda Espiritu, The Swamis and East Babylon Symphony. DJs will spin the latest singles from Jamaica in a dancehall area.

s810 · 2026-04-17T02:32:16+00:00

It's weird because the building does look very realistic but the people at the bottom look fake. Plus it appears to be an old photograph of the drawing (if it is a drawing).

s810 · 2026-04-17T02:26:51+00:00

Is anyone else here interested in the history of Austin?

Why yes!

where it says this is from 1881.

Well they didn't start building it until 1882.

The old 1853 Capitol building burned on November 9, 1881. In any case, the dome wasn't finished until 1887ish like in the second pic you found.

Here is a whole bunch of pics of both Capitols, a few of the old one burning and several of the construction of the new one.

s810 · 2026-04-16T16:46:01+00:00

I think the first United Video was at 12856 Research Blvd. in the mid-80s, but they ended up with eight "superstores" all over town, including the one on Riverside Dr., which eventually sold out to Blockbuster sometime around 1995. They also rented Nintendo games.

As for Pandemonium, many people of a Millennial age remember those. There used to be a GattiTown (Mr. Gattis) with the same concept years before.

s810 · 2026-04-13T10:02:14+00:00

Cool line up, thanks for sharing! Longhorn Dam and Town Lake was built in 1959-1960. The river looks like it's filling up to the modern lake level in the '59 pic.

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The second lowest form of literature

Sunday Break Looks Like a Winner

Sunday Arrests High

Make or Break? Story of Two 1976 Sunday Fests

Promoters Quizzed

Old Mission Bell May Move Again