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Culture

Austin’s 1999 time capsule

What was Austin like at the turn of the millennium? We took a look back at the final year of the 20th century to see what life was like pre-Y2K.

June 13, 2024 • 
Michael Beausoleil
Austin aerial view with search bar looking up "Austin 1999"

Hey Google, what was Austin like in 1999?

Photo via Canva

Do you remember 1999? That year, Google officially launched. To celebrate a quarter century, Google Trends opened its time capsule to look at the world’s search history.

To explore our local time capsule, we used the 25-year-old search engine to take a glimpse at life in Austin at the turn of the millennium.

  • Median family income: $55,400
  • Austin’s population: 587,873
  • Average cost to buy a home: $181,900
  • Average cost of a gallon of gasoline in Texas: $0.718
  • In the news: Austin-Bergstrom International Airport opened to replace Robert Mueller Municipal Airport + UT Austin professors warned of the possible risks of Y2K.
  • Who was performing: Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock joined forces at City Coliseum, before it was demolished.
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