In 1839, Edwin Waller -- storied signatory of the Texas Declaration of Independence, framer of the Constitution of the Republic of Texas, and first mayor of Austin -- had the rare pleasure of designing the very city he would be elected to lead only one year later. That layout, with a few notable exceptions, remains an accurate map of the downtown area to this day:
Waller's original plan for the City of Austin is a one-square-mile grid of pleasing bilateral symmetry, its largest central square occupied by the State . . .
