Business Hours
ClosedMonday
Closed
Tuesday
Closed
Wednesday
12:00 – 5:00 PM
Thursday
12:00 – 5:00 PM
Friday
12:00 – 5:00 PM
Saturday
12:00 – 5:00 PM
Sunday
12:00 – 5:00 PM
409 E 5th St., Austin, TX 78701, USA Get directions
Tucked into one of the original squares from Austin's 1839 city plan, Brush Square centers on the modest Victorian cottage where writer William Sydney Porter — better known as O. Henry — lived in the 1890s, now preserved as a small museum of his Austin years. Note the limited hours before you go: the museum keeps a narrow midweek window, so it's worth pairing a visit with a stroll around the downtown green it shares with a couple of other historic cottages.
Monday
Closed
Tuesday
Closed
Wednesday
12:00 – 5:00 PM
Thursday
12:00 – 5:00 PM
Friday
12:00 – 5:00 PM
Saturday
12:00 – 5:00 PM
Sunday
12:00 – 5:00 PM
Austin
Barton Springs Pool is a three-acre spring-fed swimming hole in Zilker Park, where water bubbles up from the Edwards Aquifer to hold a steady 68–70°F year-round, cold enough to take your breath in summer and oddly tolerable in winter. Watch for the Barton Springs salamander, an endangered species found nowhere else, which is part of why the limestone-lined pool is managed as carefully as it is.
Austin
Zilker Metropolitan Park sprawls across more than 300 acres along the Colorado River just southwest of downtown Austin, and it's the gateway to Barton Springs Pool, a spring-fed swimming hole that hovers around 68 degrees year-round. You'll find people picnicking on the Great Lawn, paddling Lady Bird Lake, and walking the trails here, and it's also home to the Zilker Botanical Garden and the annual Austin City Limits festival.
Austin
Three floors of exhibits trace the "Story of Texas" from its Indigenous peoples through Spanish colonization, revolution, and statehood, with the museum's IMAX screen and the special-effects Texas Spirit Theater rounding out a visit. You'll spot it from down Congress Avenue by the giant bronze Lone Star out front, just a few blocks north of the Capitol.
Events, new openings, and seasonal guides — straight to your inbox, about once a month.