The Tom Miller Dam in Austin creates Lake Austin. Longtime Austin mayor Tom Miller died April 30, 1962.
On this date in 1962, longtime Austin mayor Robert Thomas Miller died in Austin.
Miller was born in Austin on Sept. 21, 1893. He attended the University of Texas for one year, then joined his father’s produce and cotton business.
In 1917, he married Nellie May Miller. They had two children.
In April 1933, Miller was elected city councilman, and four other new councilmen chose him to be mayor, an office he would hold until 1949, then again from 1955 to 1961.
Under Miller’s command, Austin benefited from New Deal projects and grew from a small town into a city.
According to the Handbook of Texas Online: “Many of the policies he initiated continued to benefit Austin long after he left office. With greenbelts and parks enhancing the city’s quality of life, with Interstate Highway 35 and Mopac Expressway supplying traffic arteries (the results of Miller’s promotions), and with prosperous businesses growing, Austin became a metropolis-in which the impact of Mayor Tom Miller was still manifest in many areas of city life.”
Miller died on April 30, 1962. He is buried in Austin’s Oakwood Cemetery.
Source: The Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association.