ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William Osborn was born in Austin, Texas in 1959. During the early to middle 1960s he rode G.C.&S.F. trains 75 and 76 between Temple and Muleshoe, traveling with his father on business trips to his family home at Friona, Texas. He received a B.S. in Geology from Brown University in 1981 and a J.D. from the University of Texas in 1984. He was employed with the Oil and Gas Division of the Railroad Commission of Texas from 1983 to 1989 and is now in the private practice of law in Austin. In 1986 he purchased and moved to Austin for restoration the G.C.&S.F. freight depot from San Saba, Texas, locating it at 9120 Highway 290 West, the Fredericksburg Highway. More recently, smaller outbuildings at Sanger, Cleburne, Coleman, and Barnhart were purchased from the Santa Fe and moved to the same location where they are leased to commercial tenants. Beginning in the late 1990s this collection started expanding to include old oilfield buildings, including Texaco structures from Spur and McCamey, Texas, and the United Oilfield Supply warehouse from Snyder, Texas (the latter two have been purchased but have not yet arrived in Austin). William is married to a very patient wife (an architect who kindly tolerates his interest in old buildings) and has three children who have not minded being driven to odd corners of the state in search of the past.