Ann and Roy Butler
Running through Austin on the southern edge of downtown, Town Lake is circled by a beautifully landscaped and well-maintained hike and bike trail. The trail wouldn’t exist without the work of two women: Lady Bird Johnson, for whom the lake is now officially named, and Ann Butler.
Ann Butler, who is still alive, worked with Lady Bird Johnson in the early 1970s to improve the area around the lake. Together, they formed the Town Lake Beautification Committee, creating green space and a trail around Town Lake. In 2012, the trail was renamed for Ann and her late husband Roy, the first directly-elected mayor of Austin.
Ann Butler, nee Showers, grew up in Houston, spending summers on her well-to-do family’s ranch. She attended finishing school in New York (with Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane), returning to Texas after her father died and attending UT Austin.
Of her aspirations, Butler said:
“I didn’t want to do anything but get married and have children,” she admits. “Nobody I knew who was female worked. … And back in my day, you didn’t just date one person. You dated all kinds of people.”
Ann met Roy Butler on a blind date while at UT, directly after World War II when the campus was “mobbed with veterans.” The couple married six months later.
Roy Butler was born in Greenville, Texas, to a family of modest means. He retained the Depression-era frugality of his childhood throughout his life. His father was in the Army and Roy moved frequently in his youth as a result.
Roy later served in the Navy during World War II and went on to attend UT Austin, earning his degree in economics. He attended UT Law School, going to classes in the morning and buying, repairing, and selling used cars in the afternoon. Ann urged him to pursue his passion and he later dropped out of law school, opening a car dealership at 45th and Lamar (which Austinites will recognize as the intersection housing the best restaurant in town, Chili’s).
Roy went on to become a successful businessman, dipping his toes or his whole leg into real estate, cell phones, beer distribution, and radio stations. He is credited by some for transforming downtown Austin, leasing one if his buildings to Austin institutions Whole Foods, Book People, and the GDS&M ad agency.
The Butlers got to know President and First Lady Johnson in the 1960s, when LBJ wanted to buy a Lincoln. Roy personally delivered it to LBJ’s ranch himself and the couples grew into close friends.
Roy went on to serve on the school board and then as the first directly-elected mayor in 1971, serving until 1975. Prior to his election, mayors in Austin had been selected by the City Council. During his re-election in 1973, Roy received nearly 44,000 votes. As of 2009, this still stands as the most votes ever cast for any Austin mayoral candidate.
As mayor, Roy oversaw the development of MoPac, or Loop 1, the highway running through west Austin. MoPac disrupted (by design) the historically black Clarksville neighborhood, which is close to downtown.
Clarksville is the oldest surviving freedman’s town west of the Mississippi. Freedman’s towns are original post-Civil War settlements founded by former slaves. MoPac sliced through the Clarksville community, and upon its construction, many black families were forced to leave Clarksville to resettle in less desirable neighborhoods in east Austin.
It was also during Roy’s tenure as mayor that Ann and Lady Bird Johnson started work on the Town Lake Beautification Committee. The idea for the trail around the lake came from a conversation at the first lady’s suite at the Savoy Hotel in London:
“It was right on the Thames,” Butler says. “At one point in the party, Lady Bird said, ‘Ann, come out on the balcony. I want you to see something.’ So I went out on the balcony. She said: ‘Look out there. What do you see?’ I said: ‘Oh, Lady Bird, it’s gorgeous. The green grass and the trees and the shrubs and the flowers. And this trail.’ She said: ‘Isn’t it beautiful? Do you think we could do something like that on Town Lake?’ ”
Since the trail’s construction, Austin has grown just a wee bit, and the trail and surrounding green space have now become something like Austin’s Central Park — a place to gather, watch music and other performances, run, walk, bike, take your dogs to doggie beach, picnic and more.
Roy passed away in 2009, following a fall. Ann is still active in Austin’s philanthropic community, mentoring young rich people and serving on the boards of the Austin Community Foundation, the Seton Healthcare System, and KLRU.
