The Japanese Tea Garden opened in San Antonio's Brackenridge Park in 1918, converting an abandoned quarry into a complex of walkways, stone arch bridges, and a pagoda. In 1926, the city invited local Japanese-American artist Kimi Eizo Jingu and his family to move to the garden to maintain it and open the Bamboo Room, a cafe where light lunch and tea were served. After Jingu's death in the late 1930s, his family continued to maintain the garden until 1942, when they were evicted as a result of anti-Japanese sentiment during World War II. A Chinese-American family then operated the facility until the 1960s, renaming it the Chinese Sunken Garden. In 1984, the park was rededicated as the Japanese Tea Garden in a ceremony attended by Jingu's children and representatives of the Japanese government.

The Baylor Collection is made up of films capturing two generations of the Baylor family, spanning roughly from the late 1940s to 1980. The majority of the films were taken between 1960 - 1980 by John Baylor, and feature his wife, Diane and their three children, Donna, David, and Darin. John and Diane married in 1962 and lived and raised their children in central Austin. In the early 1970s, with the help of John's brother, they built a lake house on Lake LBJ. Much of the footage in the collection is taken either at the lake house, or on road trips to state parks throughout Texas.