Thanks.

If y'all want to go for a ride, I'm always game. Its a nice way to explore some of the city.

My camping trip got cancelled this weekend if we want to put something together for Saturday or Sunday.

If not, I should have a day off the weeken 2 weeks from that.

This displaced San Antonian loves this thread as well. One of these days I hope to be back.

I could be persuaded for a late Saturday afternoon ride methinks.

I'm game. I'm waiting to hear if I'm camping on the beach this Saturday is the only thing. I should know in a couple of hours.

Alrighty, I'm down.

Anyone else want to join us for a relaxed ride and beer?

I should be ready to rock around 4p or so. Where should we meet up?

I was thinking about the Pearl. Plenty of parking and there is a B-Cycle rack there if anyone wants to rent.

Bring anyone you want and we'll play it by ear.

San Fernando in 1872. The Auction building would shortly become the Frost Bank.

The Frost Mansion, For Sale.

It needs a little love, and a huge wallet.

Main Plaza looking north (1860s).

The vacant lot in the "new" photo was the site of the Wolfson Building which recently burned down.

[This message has been edited by p_bubel (edited 5/5/2013 12:59p).]

Commerce St looking east from Main Plaza. (1880)

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SW Corner Main with the Southern Hotel in the background. It was extremely popular with cattleman crowd.

quote:

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Albert Friedrich was working for the Southern Hotel Bar in San Antonio in 1881, and undoubtedly handled many of their tokens in that job. That same year he opened his own small saloon across Dolorosa street from the Southern, which became known as "Albert’s Saloon" or the "Buckhorn Saloon". Albert Friedrich’s father was in business making furniture from cattle horns, and so it was quite natural that he made horn chairs for his son’s new saloon. Throughout the years, Albert purchased some mounted horns for his saloon walls, and yearly made hunting trips to acquire others. He purchased the entire collection of horns from the Horn Palace in San Antonio to add to his collection

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Market Street Looking east from Main Plaza in the 1870.

The second building on the left with the portico is the first city market house. The first building on the left is the site of the council house council house fight.

The market house was eventually demolished and the river cutoff channel put through the site.

Fatal Corner (1885) - A place of bad luck, bad men and bad endings. The Jack Harris Vaudeville Saloon and Theater was the site of the Ben Thompson and King Fisher's murder on the same night. It was one of the most popular and notorious joints in town.

UPDATE:

Literally just ran across this on the web in a completely unrelated Googling:

quote:

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Text: Celebrated outlaw who became a peace officer. Once undisputed ruler of a 5,000-square-mile area of Southwest Texas, centered in Eagle Pass and known as King Fisher's Territory. Son of Jobe and Lucinda Fisher, at age 17 Fisher settled on Pendencia Creek in Dimmit County, hired by ranchmen to guard their herds from bandits who frequently raided from Mexico, across Rio Grande. A complex and forceful individual, he imposed order in lawless border area. His henchmen rustled cattle and terrorized resisting settlers but also protected them from outside intruders. Near his ranch was sign reading: "This is King Fisher's Road. Take the other". Many prominent men, including Porfirio Diaz, President of Mexico, counted him a friend. Tall, charming, and quite handsome, Fisher wore fine clothes and tiger skin chaps. An expert shot-- with either hand-- he was indicted on six murder charges and 15 lesser counts but was never convicted. Devoted to wife and daughters, he reformed after being arrested in 1876 by Ranger Capt. L. H. McNelly. He was acting Uvalde County sheriff, when, on March 11, 1884, he and the notorious Ben Thompson were killed from ambush at a vaudeville theater in San Antonio.

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The French Building (1877)

This city sits on the verge of civilization. To him who enters it from the west, it opens the gate to the bustling, populous American world; and he who departs from it to the west, enters a wilderness.” The Coming Empire; or, Two Thousand Miles in Texas on Horseback by H. F. McDaniel & N. A. Taylor (NY: A.S. Barnes, 1877)

This building was a one time Federal Arsenal just before the outbreak of the Civil War and later a bank. The old Post Office is on the right. (SE Corner of Main Plaza)

French Building again with the old post office. (1861) The photo is related to the surrender of Twigg's Federal troops in Main Plaza.

Twiggs Surrender

Main Plaza in 1872, taken from the Plaza Hotel.

Most of the buildings, save the third one from the right in the middle block, were torn down to make way for the river channel flood cut-off.

The two story mentioned above is still standing and is currently for sale.

Steves Home ~ 1885

Steves Homestead, King Willaim. Mrs. Steves sitting on the bench. The photo is from 1885, but the home was built by Alfred Giles for the lumber company owner in 1876

The Beethoven Männerchor is a San Antonio German men's chorus. The heaviest influx of Germans to Texas, fleeing political and economic problems in their homeland, began arriving in 1845. They brought with them their love of music, gemütlichkeit (fellowship) and das deutsche Lied (German song).

The Beethoven had been meeting in several different locations until 1894, when it built its own concert and club hall on South Alamo Street. Architect Albert Beckmann designed the building, which was formally dedicated on October 12, 1895. This building burned down on October 31, 1913, and a new hall was designed by prominent San Antonio architect Leo M. J. Dielmann with Jacob Wagner supervising the construction. Beethoven Hall served as the Männerchor's concert hall for many years. When Alamo St was widened the remaining facade was stripped off the building.

[This message has been edited by p_bubel (edited 5/5/2013 12:50p).]

Key Hole Club (1950) W. Poplar and Alazan Creek.

On the southwestern fringes of the chitlin' circuit, San Antonio was in some ways typical of the numerous towns along this network of musical venues through which so many black artists toured. With a substantial African-American population, the city had a number of segregated clubs that catered primarily to black audiences and musicians, especially prior to World War II. These included the Shadowland on Blanco Road, which attracted such notable performers as Louis Armstrong and was alternately the home base of Troy Floyd’s Orchestra and Don Albert and His Ten Pals during the late 1920s and early
1930s.

What developed in San Antonio as a result of this openness was an atmosphere of “intercultural congeniality,” in which a remarkable degree of musical cross-pollination took place among people of different ethnic and racial backgrounds.

What factors helped compel many of the city’s nightclubs to allow, and even encourage, racial intermingling at a time when most of the South remained mired in long-standing segregationist policies? For one thing, San Antonio had always been an ethnically diverse community, beginning with both Spanish and Indian settlers in the 1700s and continuing throughout the 1800s, as blacks, Anglos, Irish, Germans, Czechs, French, Poles, and others poured into the area. By World War II, the city had number of military installations that included high numbers of black and Hispanic servicemen and their families. When President Harry Truman desegregated the Armed Forces in 1948, it had a ripple effect throughout the town’s large military population that reached into the general civilian population,
as well. By the 1950s, San Antonio was well ahead of other large southern cities, in terms of racial integration. In fact, when the Supreme Court declared segregation in public education to be illegal in 1954, San Antonio became the first major urban center in the South to desegregate its schools.

[This message has been edited by p_bubel (edited 5/5/2013 1:01p).]

I've found these "SA Back in the Day" photo collections to be pretty interesting:

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/slideshow/S-A-Back-in-the-Day-May-1953-61751.php#photo-4581672

Thanks Darlin.

wasn't familiar with Fatal Corner and found this article http://www.watercresspress.com/Fatal-Corner.htm

There's a Facebook page with lots of neat photos and discussion:

https://www.facebook.com/SanAntonioBackInTheDay?hc_location=stream

Some old flooding pics included in this thread:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/san-antonio/1872114-olmos-basin-park-lowest-water-area.html

I have a couple of more that I would like to get to tonight.



Casanova and Chihuahua St (Alazan Apache Courts)


I do not like this new Flickr interface.

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dg77ag,
I am working on a project with the City doing inventory of the remaining hemisphere houses and the Sweeney house is one of them. We are making recommendations for stabilization efforts and in some cases full renovation efforts. Most of the remaining houses down there are just sitting empty deteriorating and its sad.

Thanks for your efforts, we appreciate your help in maintaining this building, it is sad that this structure as well as others have remained vacant for so long, we are looking forward to the renovation plans for the hemisfair grounds. Shoot me a pm if there is anything I can do to assist. Again, many thanks.

That is cool.

You wouldn't happen to have any old photos. Most of the ones in the city archive we have access to are around the late 60's right before Hemisfair. At that point the house was already ~100 years old. We have had some debate here in the office of what was likely original versus modified over the years. We have the 1896 and 1912 Sanborn maps that show the "L" shape addition and porch modifications but some of the detailing of columns roof and overhangs have been modified with no real record of what existed prior.

Although the Sweeney house is one of the more simplistic houses remaining it is my favorite because it represents a very "Texas" style homestead versus the largely ornate Schultz, Acosta and Kampmann houses. Kudos to your great grandfather for building a house that has stood 150 years.

I am friends with Ernst Raba's family, a very early photographer in San Antonio, and I have seen some old tin plates from the late 1800s in their place.

I'd be happy to ask them if they have any remaining. I think some were donated to the Institute of Texan Cultures and couple of years back.

I want to take a look through the collection for my purposes as well, of course.

And again now that I think about it, I do have a minor connection with the Goldbecks as well. If you want specifics of those homes I'm happy to ask around.

[This message has been edited by p_bubel (edited 8/9/2013 3:25p).]

04.arch.ag-
I'm sure we can put something together, I'll contact other family members and see if we can find some old photos, a couple of geneology books I know have been made over the years, I know everyone will be interested in repairs or renovation done to this house, might be a great reason to get the whole family together for another "san antonio irish" celebration when the project is complete. Again thank you and the team for your efforts, and bubel thanks for this thread and all of your efforts

Got some more coming this evening.




Jim's at 410 and Broadway. 1966

[This message has been edited by p_bubel (edited 9/4/2013 7:41p).]