Historical landmark
Moonlight Tower - Zilker Park
Surviving nineteenth-century arc-light tower repurposed each winter as a spiraling holiday tree.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Moonlight Tower at Zilker Park in Austin opens with the legend Austinites still tell, that its lights were raised to stop a killer, the so-called Servant Girl Annihilator, who stalked the city between eighteen eighty-four and eighty-five. It follows the eight victims of those unsolved crimes and the one prosecution that collapsed, then checks that story against the tower's own arrival date. You will also hear how this exact tower came to stand in Zilker Park, and why it now doubles as Austin's Christmas tree each December.
This audio guide was created using AI.