He said he heard Buford had secured his rope and that he was sucked down into a manhole he couldn’t swim out because of the rope around his waist.Ĭohen said this version of Buford's death comes up when training new firefighters. ![]() ![]() “He didn’t die in vain,” said Jerry Cohen, a firefighter with the Austin Fire Department and the department’s de-facto historian.Ĭohen’s version of Buford’s death doesn’t match news reports from the time. In December 1974, City Council members voted to rename the defunct drill tower after Buford. One of the boys he was trying to save also died. He died the next day at Brackenridge Hospital. “He had a big scrape, an abrasion, on his head and they think when he was swept, he may have hit his head on that concrete.”īuford was pulled from the water 20 minutes later. “We were told he went through a big culvert – a concrete culvert on the side of the road,” she said. “They don’t know whether he tripped, whether the force of the water swept his feet out from under him or if he stepped in a manhole,” Klosterhoff said. But when he went to secure his rope on a telephone pole, he fell into the rushing waters. According to newspaper articles from the time, the two high school students were riding a motorcycle to a new park to swim when they were swept off the road by floodwaters.īuford, who served in the Navy and was described by his daughters in news reports as a strong swimmer, wrapped a rope around his waist as a safety harness. On June 16, 1972, Buford answered a call of two boys who had been swept into Shoal Creek floodwaters near Spicewood Springs Road. “Up until his death, they sent him cards every year on her birthday.” “I know he delivered a baby one time,” said McCoy, who was just 11 when her father died. James Buford died in the line of duty in 1972, the tower was named for him. “The flames, of course, will be synthetic, and so will the smoke, but there will be nothing faked in the way adept firemen will slide down ropes, scale ladders, lay hose and play streams of water on their synthetic blaze,” reads a Statesman article from 1937. A photograph from 1937 shows a large crowd forming a U-shape around the tower, watching as firefighters sprayed water into the building from various angles.īut one article from the time suggests these demonstrations were scheduled shows that residents came to observe rather than actual drills. The windows had no coverings, since oxygen better fueled the fires lit inside. The interior of the tower was less opulent. Roy White, gave the tower an Italianate character – featuring stone cornices and red brick. (Kuehne was also involved in the writing of Austin's 1928 Master Plan, which notoriously forced black residents into the eastern part of the city.)Īccording to a history written in the tower’s submission to the National Register of Historic Places, Kuehne and his partner, J. So, the city hired the architecture firm of Hugo Kuehne, which also designed the Ritz Theatre and the Commodore Perry Hotel. A Statesman article from 1930 promised the tower would be “attractive and really a scenic addition to the site.” ![]() “Anything that we’re constructing should be beautiful,” McKnight said. ![]() In the beginning of the 20th century, cities across the world had bought into an urban beautification movement, so even though the tower would be smacked with ladders and set aflame, it had to look good. The tower, the city estimated, would cost $5,000. “But they would also be equipped with different fire hydrants so they could test out hoses and really train new firefighters.”Īccording to an Austin Statesman article from 1929, a drill tower would also save the city from having to pay a 5 percent penalty on its fire insurance rate. “ a structure that allowed the firefighters to do a number of things, not only practice fighting fires in the actual structure itself,” said Kim McKnight, the environmental conservation program manager with the Austin Parks and Recreation Department. Credit Courtesy of the Austin Fire Museum Firefighters conduct drills at the tower on Cesar Chavez.
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