When Chauncey Leverich first platted Austin in 1856, Block 1 of the original village was between what is now Third and Second streets NE and Oakland and First avenues NE.

Friday, July 28, 2000

When Chauncey Leverich first platted Austin in 1856, Block 1 of the original village was between what is now Third and Second streets NE and Oakland and First avenues NE.

In fact, Block 1 was precisely where the work-in-progress that has been called "Phase II of the Courtyard Apartments" since its inception is being constructed. Hence the recently adopted name: Chauncey Apartments.

"That block is where it all started," Sherri Detloff said. The Austin Housing and Redevelopment Authority accountant went on to explain that Tom Smith, director of community development for the HRA, was the source of the new name. Smith remembered learning in his Austin High School history class that Chauncey Leverich had actually founded Austin, after buying the original claim from Austin Nichols.

What she left out was that Leverich – in addition to being the city’s founder – also was the first person murdered in Austin. It happened on an August night in 1856. Leverich, who also built the saw mill that was Austin’s first business enterprise as well as Austin’s first saloon, was watching his first-night crowd of customers and smoking a cigar. Horace Silver and William Oliver walked into the saloon, both of them drunk, and Silver knocked the cigar out of Leverich’s mouth. Leverich picked it up; Silver again knocked it out. There was a quarrel.

When Leverich followed the two men out of the bar, one of them threw a wagon spring at him and knocked him down, doing some serious damage in the process. Leverich died five or six days after he was assaulted.

His killers, who had pleaded guilty to assault and battery and paid $30 in fines between them, had left town and never were charged with his death. The town’s founder is buried in Oakwood Cemetery, his final resting place after his body was moved from its first grave south of his downtown saloon out to the cemetery.

A century after Austin was founded, centennial celebrators had a marble slab engraved for the unmarked grave. There is a time capsule beneath the marble marker that is to be opened in 2056.

The apartments named after the founder will be open long before that.

Detloff, who will be in charge of the rentals for the new apartments, said the Chauncey Apartments should be complete and ready to be lived in by June 2001. There already is a waiting list for the apartments, which range in rent from $625 to $830 a month.