An Oasis in the Middle of a Scorching Texas Summer News

It was six o’clock on Friday morning, at least 15 minutes before dawn over Texas’ capital city, and scores of vehicles had already crowded into the parking lot at Barton Springs Pool, a few miles — and in some ways, an entire world — from the lighted skyscrapers of downtown.

Jeremy Baumann, a local health care worker, 

had already been in the water for an hour, getting in his daily laps. As the city settled in for another day of triple-digit heat, a devoted procession that would reach several thousand by the evening headed toward the three-acre, spring-fed pool: families hauling plastic floaties, workers briefly escaping from offices, longtime friends and neighbors meeting poolside as much to socialize as to swim.

When Austinites talk about Barton Springs, 

they do so in almost spiritual terms. “It’s very much a sacred place,” said Kim McKnight, manager of historic preservation and tourism for the city’s Parks and Recreation Department. “I recognize not everybody goes there, but for those who do they can’t imagine life without it.”

Alex Sabolcik, 23, flipped off the diving board at the pool. 

“It’s one of the few pools with an actual board,” he said, “and there’s not much else you can do outside after 9 a.m. in the heat.”Credit...Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times

A part of the Austin landscape since the early 20th century, 

the pool is so beloved that residents resorted to near rebellion to save it from developers in the 1990s. Marriages and funerals are regularly held on its grassy banks. The city brags on its website that the actor Robert Redford learned to swim there at the age of 5 when he was visiting family in Austin.