Instead the road that ambles along Barton Creek into the Zilker neighborhood will be named for Azie Taylor Morton, the countrys first and only black U.S. treasurer, who grew up and went to college in Austin. Its official designation will be Azie Morton Road. In the Brentwood neighborhood in North Austin, the street that was presumably named for the president of the Confederacy will now be named for William Holland, an African-American Travis County commissioner who served in the state Legislature and founded the Deaf, Dumb and Blind Institute for Colored Youth in Austin in 1887, a precursor to the Texas School for the Blind. The vote was 10-0 with City Council Member Ellen Troxclair absent from the meeting.
While most of the residents who responded to surveys from the city objected to the proposed name changes, the lions share of speakers at City Hall on Thursday were in favor of the revisions.