Grants Bulletin: Preservation Austin awards $18,000 in our Summer 2024 grant cycle
Preservation Austin’s Grants Program fuels essential projects across three categories: education, bricks and mortar, and planning/survey/historic designation. By providing funding to important projects citywide, we aim to financially support our fellow Austinites as they preserve our shared past.
Our Grants Program is currently on pause for our Winter 2025 cycle. Please stay tuned for more information about our upcoming application cycles in Summer 2025!
Grants by the Numbers
Total amount of funding awarded since 2016: $246,722
Projects funded: 62
Project types
Bricks and Mortar: 32
Education: 17
Planning/Survey/Historic Designation: 14
Average Grant Award: $3,979
Leonard Hill at Ideal Barbershop. Courtesy of Javier Wallace.
Black Austin Tours | $3,725 Education Grant
Black Barbers in Austin Project
Black-owned barbershops have long been vital to the African American community in Austin, serving as hubs of social, cultural, and economic activity. Despite their significance, little research has been conducted on these barbershops – from early establishments like the one at the Driskill, which catered to white patrons, to the numerous shops in East Austin that served the Black community. The "Black Barbers in Austin" project aims to explore their history, particularly Leonard F. Hill's Ideal Barbershop, established in 1948 and potentially the oldest Black-owned barbershop still operating today. With support from Preservation Austin, Javier Wallace, the founder of Black Austin Tours, will research and document these stories, culminating in a digital exhibit and in-person event to preserve this essential cultural heritage.
94 Navasota. Courtesy of the Center for Women and Their Work.
Center for Women & Their Work | $6,525 Bricks & Mortar Grant
Window screen replacement at the Center for Women & Their Work
The Center For Women & Their Work was founded by activists in 1978 to confront sexism, racism, and homophobia in the arts. Their goal has been to serve as a creative hub for institutionally marginalized communities and create space for women’s voices to be loud through visual art, music, dance, theater, and spoken word. Devoted stewards to two historic properties in the East Cesar Chavez neighborhood, the organization has recently embarked on a major restoration project – supported in part by state Historic Preservation Tax Credits – to preserve the original character of their buildings and reintroduce the vitality that these buildings fostered for so much of their history. Preservation Austin is proud to contribute to this effort with a grant to recreate eighteen character-defining window screens at 94 Navasota Street.
Courtesy of Deep Eddy Cabaret.
Deep Eddy Cabaret | $2,000 Bricks & Mortar Grant
Drainage and gutter repairs at Deep Eddy Cabaret
Established in 1951 by Raymond and Mickey Hickman, Deep Eddy Cabaret was recently designated as a local historic landmark, providing it with added protection from demolition. In order to ensure that the beloved dive bar will remain structurally sound for decades to come, Preservation Austin is pleased to provide grant support for drainage and gutter repairs. The planned work will involve cleaning and covering overloaded gutters and downspouts, as well as tackling key drainage issues to reduce erosion and prevent deterioration of the building's structural components. This preventative maintenance is vital for securing the future of this neighborhood treasure.
Neill-Cochran House Museum Slave Quarters. Courtesy of Neill-Cochran House Museum.
Neill-Cochran House Museum | $2,000 Education Grant
NCHM 19th Century Austin Murals Project
The Neill-Cochran House Museum’s “19th Century Austin Murals Project,” is an artistic initiative to visually reunite the site’s main house with the Slave Quarters. Give Us This Day will be an interior mural designed to honor the enslaved workers and servants who lived and labored at the Neill-Cochran House from the early 19th century to the Reconstruction era after the Civil War. With support from a Preservation Austin grant, Fidencio Duran, a celebrated Austin muralist, will produce three mural panels that will be installed in window frames at the main house without damaging the building’s historic fabric. Once installed, these panels will expand visitors’ understanding of the many people who were involved in the site’s management as well as in the founding and growth of Austin more broadly.
Film poster. Courtesy of Sugarloaf Pictures LLC.
Sugarloaf Pictures LLC | $3,750 Education Grant
Tonkawa: They All Stay Together Documentary
Tonkawa: They All Stay Together is a feature length documentary that follows the Tonkawa tribe over two years as they work to preserve their historic tribal identity and redefine what it means, culturally and socially, to be a Tonkawa today. Originally from central Texas, and pivotal to the growth and safekeeping of the nascent city of Austin in the early 1840s, the Tonkawa were forcibly relocated to Oklahoma and until a ceremony on September 12, 2024, were never officially received and honored in Austin. Sugarloaf Pictures LLC received an education grant from Preservation Austin to pay for production and editing of footage of this event, officially proclaimed “Austin-Tonkawa Friendship Day,” which will become a part of the longer documentary. The final film, which seeks to document and celebrate the Tonkawa tribe, is expected to be released in 2025.