Hancock
The Hancock neighborhood is located in the city of Austin, Texas. Hancock is a neighborhood in Austin, Texas that spans both the 78751 and 78705 zip codes.
Hancock is located north of downtown Austin and the University of Texas. It is bounded on the south by 32nd Street, the west by Duval Street and the neighborhoods of Hyde Park and North University, the north by 45th Street and the community of North Loop, and the east by Interstate 35 and the neighborhoods of Cherrywood and Wilshire Wood.
History
Susanna Dickinson, a Battle of the Alamo survivor who first settled at the intersection of 32nd and Duval Streets, is regarded as one of the Hancock region’s first residents. Susanna Dickinson Square has been named for her. Lewis Hancock, for whom the district was named, was another early resident. In addition to serving as Mayor of Austin from 1895 to 1897, Hancock founded the Austin Country Club and Golf Course in 1899. Following the turn of the century, official neighborhoods were established in what was then known as the North University area.
Dr. J.R. Bailey laid out the Beau Site in 1910, which was believed to be in the suburbs at the time. The Austin Country Club grew to 18 holes two years later, in 1912, after the club and its proprietors purchased the acreage east of the Red River on which it was developed. The property was utilized to expand the golf course. The current structure of the neighborhood was formed in 1928, when Austin’s population was only about 35,000; thus, the district was still considered to be on the outskirts of town at the time.
St. David’s Hospital near 32nd Street began building in 1924, the same year it opened its doors. Concordia Lutheran College was built on twenty acres of land purchased from the Hancock Estate in 1926. Soon after, a slew of commercial establishments sprouted up, and many important Austinites relocated to the Hancock neighborhood about the same time. Among these distinguished Austinites were J. Frank Dobie, a well-known writer, and Edgar Perry Jr., a cotton dealer, as well as Tom Miller, one of Austin’s early mayors who served two terms.
The Austin Country Club relocated to what is currently known as East Riverside Drive, which is located outside of the municipal boundaries, in 1946. Simultaneously, the city of Austin sold the back nine holes of the Hancock Golf Course to the Sears Corporation in order to collect funds for other types of recreational development.
The Sears store was eventually converted into one of the primary stores of the Hancock Center Shopping Plaza. The Hancock Center Shopping Plaza, built on the back nine of a golf course in 1963, is commonly considered Austin’s first enclosed shopping center. The massive H-E-B grocery store, which can be found with a broad range of other businesses, boutiques, and restaurants, is another of Hancock Center’s primary stores. In the 1960s, it housed the first Dillard’s store in Texas, as well as a Sears that was more than double the size of the store in the city’s downtown. Other early tenants in the Hancock Center included Merritt, Schaeffer, Brown, Snyder Chenards, Leon’s, and Merle Norman Cosmetics.
The introduction of the entirely enclosed Highland Mall in 1970 may have contributed to the demise of Hancock Center. Nonetheless, the Center was sold again in the 1990s, and it was soon rumored that a $11 million renovation investment would be made. Following Pacific Retail Trust’s purchase of the shopping center in 1996, H-E-B announced plans to construct a new 94,000-square-foot supermarket store. The new store would be around three times the size of the previous one, which opened in 1964. [4] Hancock Center now houses a diverse range of businesses, including Jason’s Deli, Freebirds, and PetCo.
Demographics
In 2009, the population of the Hancock metropolitan area, as defined by the US Census Bureau, was 5,028 people spread across an area of 0.974 square miles. The population density is more than twice as high as the citywide average, at 5,164 persons per square mile. 72% are white, 14% are Asian or Pacific Islander, 10% are Hispanic or Latino, 1% are black, and 3% are other. The median household income in Austin in 2009 was $29,758, which was significantly lower than the city’s overall median income of $50,132. In contrast, the average estimated value of detached houses (which accounted for 33.4% of all units) in 2009 was $363,741, which was significantly higher than the citywide average of $286,025.
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