The University of Texas Tower # 5 - Austin T X

by Allen Beatty

Title

The University of Texas Tower # 5 - Austin T X

Artist

Allen Beatty

Medium

Photograph - Photographs

Description

The Main Building (known colloquially as The Tower) is a structure at the center of the University of Texas at Austin campus in Downtown Austin, Texas, United States. The Main Building's 307-foot tower has 27 floors and is one of the most recognizable symbols of the university and the city.
Unfortunately , the tower is also infamously known as the site of one of the first mass shootings in US history.
On August 1, 1966, after stabbing his mother and his wife to death the night before, Charles Whitman, a former Marine, took rifles and other weapons to the observation deck atop the Main Building tower at the University of Texas at Austin, then opened fire indiscriminately on persons on the surrounding campus and streets. Over the next 96 minutes he shot and killed 16 people (including one unborn child) and injured 31 others; a final victim died in 2001 from the lingering effects of his wounds. The incident ended when a policeman and a civilian reached Whitman and shot him dead. The attack is one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.
Again, unfortunately these mass killings continue to this day at an alarming rate. Hopefully, one day the country as a whole, will come to its senses and figure out steps we can all agree upon to end this insanity or at least stop some of them.

Uploaded

May 13th, 2019

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