Scholar

Eugene George at Falcon Reservoir
Eugene George at Falcon Reservoir

Eugene George recounts an interest in historic buildings from his student days at the University of Texas in the 1940s, when he frequented downtown Austin to look at buildings, particularly the warehouses and storefronts that provided evidence of a nineteenth-century wagon yard on Fifth and Sixth Streets. This interest continued during his military service in World War II. While a prisoner of war in Germany, George checked out the only books on architecture available in the prison library - one on engineering, and another on the building of San Michele, which he later visited to see in person.

Eugene George’s approach to historic preservation is intensely scholarly. He uses the historical record, available through repositories like the Alexander Architectural Archives, to collect data on the people and techniques involved in constructing various historic sites. His published research has focused on the Rio Grande Valley and the architecture of the Texas-Mexico border, a region that was not well studied when he first became interested in it.