Congress Ave Bridge crosses the Colorado at the southern end of downtown. A menacingly jovial native Texan, LBJ balanced the John F Kennedy campaign ticket with a southern political mainstay and, hours after JFK's assassination, was sworn in as president on board Air Force One. Supported by Lady Bird Johnson, the former first lady, the museum contains as much propaganda as you'd expect but also offers a candid look at the social and political climate of the era. Upstairs, a new exhibit on Mexican Texans details pre-republic Texas life. Also on campus, the Texas Memorial Museum packs a huge art deco building with displays of Texas' natural and social history.
Exhibits focus on geology, paleontology, anthropology and natural history.
Don't miss the impressive pterodactyl skeleton. The collection focuses on 20th century North American and Latin American art and on drawings from the 15th century on. Major figures represented include Elsworth Kelly, Andy Warhol, Joan Mitchel, Thomas Hart Benton and Robert Henri. On the first floor of the HRC is the museum's prized Gutenberg bible. If there's an epicenter to outdoor recreation in Austin, it's Zilker Park, just south of the Colorado River about half a mile west of Congress Ave.