USA > Texas > A Twentieth century history of southwest Texas, Volume I > Part 43
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Business.
The tourist business, with the enterprises and institutions built up around it, is, then, the chiefest of the new elements of resource that have come to San Antonio during the past thirty years. But if the city should lose its military post, its prestige in the live-stock country, the railroad shops and terminals, there would still remain a large nucleus of purely business assets. Because the other interests are so conspicu- ous. one often forgets that San Antonio has an important aggregate of varied manufactories, is each year strengthening its place as a whole-
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sale center, and-another thing that should not be omitted-is being surrounded by an ever increasing area of purely agricultural country, whose productions are more intimately beneficial to a market center than the cattle business.
This is the department of modern San Antonio to which the Busi- ness Men's Club devotes its special attention, though, in practice, every- thing that pertains to the welfare of the city, whether in the domain of pure business or not, comes in the scope of the club's attention. This organization, whose membership recently passed the thousand mark, represents progressive and public-spirited business. The presence of such a club is sufficient evidence in itself that the city has not surren- dered to the past ; is not content to pose as a "resort" or the center of numerous institutions ; but is independent, resourceful and progressive. It is owing to the activities and the civic spirit which this club repre- sents that San Antonio possesses such a happy combination of the old and the new; has, instead of decay and stagnation, a "green old age," and continues to thrive abreast of other cities by the constant injection of youth and enterprise.
In its annual for 1906 the Business Men's Club gave the following summary of the interests which we have just considered :
"San Antonio has 148 manufacturing establishments, employing from ten to 950 persons each. Among the plants are two of the largest breweries in the south, several flouring mills, machine shops, foundries, iron works, candy factories, binderies, lithographing and printing houses, vinegar and baking powder factories, pickling establishments, sewer pipe, brick and artificial stone plants, cement works, paper box factories, broom factories, marble works, etc.
"There are twenty-nine wholesale houses which virtually control south and west Texas, a territory larger than the state of Ohio, San Antonio being located almost directly in the center. These houses rep- resent all branches of trade.
"San Antonio has seven national banks, four private banks and two state banks, the combined capital stock of which, including surplus, officially reported September 1. 1905, was $4,101,000. All the banks are solid and substantial institutions, and it is safe to say that the aggre- gate amount deposited in these banks would swell the total deposits in the city to a sum exceeding $12,000,000."
Educational.
In another manner has San Antonio attained a creditable distinc- tion during the past thirty years. The history of education belongs on other pages, but it should be said that, were there not such a variety of other important interests, San Antonio would well deserve the common title of "a school town." Each year sees a larger number of families from Texas moving to this city that their children may secure the ad- vantages of the public or private schools, and many hundred children from all parts of the United States attend school here during part of the vear at least. The last number of the Business Men's publication above referred to, speaks of this department of San Antonio's advantages as follows :
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The city owns twenty-five school houses, fourteen brick, ten stone, one wood, valued at $475,000. During the school year of 1904-1905, the total enrollment was 9,353, during which school year $127,764.43 was paid for salaries to the teachers. The public schools employ 183 teachers, 159 white and twenty-four colored. The amount of salaries paid to public school teachers and teachers in the twenty-nine private schools and colleges approximates $237,000 per school year, which is presented as evidence that San Antonio is the leading educational cen- ter in the south. The total enrollment in the public schools, private schools and colleges for the school year ending 1905, was IL,422. A careful estimate of the amount distributed by the private schools and colleges amounts to over one-half million dollars; this added to the salaries paid to the public school teachers, shows that the fifty-four schools in the city of San Antonio distribute annually over $800,000, whichi amount will increase each year, according to the increased patron- age, which is accepted as a certainty.
Public and Municipal Progress.
When it comes to summarizing the results of thirty years in mu- nicipal utilities and economy, under which head we will conclude the de- scription of the principal developments during this period, the difficulty is in proper selections, since there is not a direction in which wonder- ful progress has not been made.
Street Railways.
First in point of time, and probably of importance, too, was the street railway system. At the present time only one or two important sections of the city are not traversed by an electric line, and extension is continually going on. This form of transportation has made possible the development of such well known suburbs as Alamo Heights, Tobin Hill, West End, and many others, which rapid transportation has brought within convenient access and made integral parts of the city. There are nearly 70 miles of street railroads in San Antonio.
Col. Augustus Belknap is said to have been the founder of the street railway system of San Antonio, and for ten years, beginning with 1878, the Belknap lines were the only ones in the city. These lines focussed at the Alamo plaza, and formerly comprised the San Pedro. line, the Avenue C line, City Hall line, the line to the S. A. P. depot, and the Flores street line. Other systems were the McCrillis, or Alamo Electric Street Railway, comprising the line down Navarro street to the Hot Wells, and two other lines starting from Alamo plaza; the West End system, to West End Lake; and the Alamo Heights system, running from Alamo plaza to the Alamo Heights addition.
The first street railroad was that extending from Alamo plaza to San Pedro springs, work of construction beginning February 26, 1878. On April 10, 1880, the Avenue C extension was begun, and the Flores street line was completed March 27, 1884. An interesting account of the beginning and something of the subsequent development of the street car system is given in the following extract from a recent San Antonio paper :
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The following letter marks the first page in the history of the San Antonio Traction company. It was written thirty-two years ago this September, by the president of the Austin City railroad company, in answer to inquiries :
Austin, Tex., Sept. 14, 1875.
James P. Newcomb, Esq.,
Sec. S. A. St. R. W. Co., San Antonio. Dear Sir :
Your favor of Ith inst. is at hand. And in reply will state that the gauge of our road is three feet, six inches (3 feet, 6 inches), and works admirably. The cars are not so heavy, and the friction is not near so great as on the wider gauge roads. And at the same time the cars are wide and roomy enough. The Galveston and Houston City railroad men who have seen our road pronounce it a grand improvement.
Our iron weighs 20 pounds to the yard. Is T. Rail, and it takes 31 tons and 328 pounds to the mile. I believe that iron weighing 18 pounds to the yard will answer the purpose quite as well, and 28 tons 285 pounds will lay a mile of track. . It costs 3c per pound. Splice bars cost 34c, bolts 4 to 6c per pound. Spikes 4 to 6c. Ties five feet long face 5 or 6 inches, 24 inches from the center, requires 2,640 per mile.
Yours truly, JOHN M. SWISHER.
A second letter dated two days later, gave this further information :
"We have two sizes of cars, 12 feet and 10 feet. The latter are far pref- erable. They are large enough, and are not near so hard on the animals. Our ten feet cars cost at St. Louis each $850, and the Patent fare boxes $125 each."
In view of the present improved condition of things, these figures seem like the calculations for a toy railway. The iron used for rails by the San An- tonio Traction company today weighs 98 pounds to the yard, and the new cars now running on the line are 40 feet long, accommodating at need, 100 passengers.
The Austin models were followed at the time, however. and the first track in San Antonio built according to the specifications given. The line was owned by Colonel A. Belknap and went into operation in 1878, under the name of the San Antonio Street railway company. The cars ran out from Alamo plaza to San Pedro Springs, from Avenue C to the post, and from San Pedro park up Flores street to the Aransas Pass depot.
Other lines followed, to Alamo Heights, to West End and Hot Wells. In the course of successive managements, these were consolidated with the San An- tonio Street Railway company under the present name of the San Antonio Trac- tion company.
In 1890, the mule cars were replaced by the electric trolley cars, and today San Antonio has a system of street railway of which its citizens can well be proud. The city covers 36 square miles and any part of it can be reached by one of the four lines of cars. Transfers are given over every line, and an ob- servation car leaves Alamo plaza twice a day at 9:30 a. m. and 2:30 p. m., pass- ing in its route all places of interest in and about the city.
The first president of the street railway company was H. B. Adams. Those following in order of succession were A. Belknap, William Weiss, E. H. Jenkins, Reagan Houston, H. M. Littell and W. B. Tuttle, now in charge.
Other officials under the present management are J. King, general superin- tendent ; T. C. Brown, superintendent of transportation; A. M. Courtney, super- intendent of construction and J. Mellor, general despatcher. The company em- ploys 225 men and runs at present 85 motor cars. The first car leaves the shed at six in the morning, and the last one gets in at 12 at night-a run of 18 hours which is broken at 3 p. m. by a change of men, making each man's time nine hours instead of 18 as it was formerly.
The passing of the mule car was not without its pathos. The old cars were taken off the track and ranged in line under the car shed opposite San Pedro Springs- "dignified exiles," their time of service past-and from this exposed position forced to watch their prosperous rivals, new in pattern, brilliant in yellow paint, flaunt themselves by every 15 minutes with the rattle and clang, the noisy effrontery of the creature of electric parts.
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The mules disappeared completely as though they had all been "transported far beyond the northern sea," and only the men who had guided the mules, re- mained to give to the new regime, a touch of the familiar and the old.
It took the citizens a long time, especially the feminine part of the com- munity, to realize the autocracy of schedule time. When one has been accustomed to call from the front gallery, "Wait a minute!" and run back to the glass to ad- just her veil, or snatch her gloves, knowing that the car will be standing at the front door when she comes out, these absurd modern regulations as to corners, right and left sides, so many seconds to jump off and so many seconds to get on, are very exasperating.
The mule cars that ran to the suburbs were especially accommodating. The drivers who were the conductors, would mail letters, carry parcels, deliver messages, do marketing-and in one instance on the South Heights line, one was known to leave his mule standing while he escorted a lady caught out after dark to her door a few steps away.
Public Buildings.
Thirty years ago there was not a public building, aside from the churches, that could be spoken of as distinctly creditable to the city. The public buildings alone are now among the attractions for the visitor. The County Court House cost $600,000. The City Hall cost $210,000. The Federal Building cost $275,000. The Market House and Conven- tion Hall cost $55,000. The Convention Hall seats 4,000. All of these have been erected within the period of this chapter. Besides there are two theatres, and Beethoven Hall, Turner Hall, Harmony Hall, and Casino Hall are among the most imposing buildings in the city, which, in connection with the San Antonio Club, are the centers of leading social functions. Of public school buildings, San Antonio has nothing imposing to show at present. But several of the denominational schools possess buildings and grounds that form a conspicuous part of the gen- eral architecture of the city, while of the fifty or sixty churches many are ornate and imposing structures that speak well for the religious as- pects of the city.
Streets.
Much remains to be desired in the streets. Yet looking back thirty years, one rather marvels at what men may accomplish in a corporate capacity in the direction of improvement and construction. In a previous chapter has been quoted some comment on the streets of an earlier date. In order to sharpen the contrast, and to learn of the beginning of many improvements that are now in full evidence, one should read the follow- ing extract from the San Antonio Herald, of February, 1878 :
The streets of the old part of the city follow the incomprehensible fashion of the older cities of southern Europe and Asia, being very narrow, and also very crooked; but they are as picturesque as they are narrow, with their medley of Mexicans, with their ox-carts and beasts of burden; fine American turn-outs, with fair occupants: mule-trains from the western plains and all conceivable vehicles, and their traffic confined within such narrow limits, as to give them an air of great bustle and life. The donkey is much used here, and one almost ex- pects to see a camel come stepping down the streets. Indeed camels have been raised to some extent on the plains to the west. Commerce Street, the main thoroughfare of the city, is one of these narrow streets. There elegant stone and iron front buildings jostle neighbors, low and flat-roofed, with parapeted wall, behind which in the stormy scenes of the past, men lay concealed and fired at their foes in the streets below. The streets open, a little farther on, into the main
German Village.
Main Plaza during Carnival. Court House and San Fernando Cathedral.
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plaza, and still farther west, into the Military Plaza, which redeem its narrow- ness in a measure. There are other plazas in various parts of the town.
In the newer portions, broad avenues stretched out in every direction, adorned by many very elegant modern residences, and many simple, but attractive, ones; and there are some not so attractive, as well. There seems to be no one street or section of the city, especially devoted to fine residences, but in every part are found more or less of them. One of the most charming streets in the town first of the former class, narrow and crooked, is North Flores Street. An acequia, or irrigating ditch, flowing along one side, with a swift current, is its prettiest feature, the banks being fringed with water plants, and embowered with trees and shrub- bery. Back of this are lawns and gardens and pretty cottages, approached from the street by little foot bridges. No fencing is required. The acequia, which is four or five feet wide, being a sufficient protection. These acequias follow the wake of the ground all over the city, sometimes appearing in front and some- times in the rear of the houses. From these smaller ditches, open or covered, are carried to every garden. When the water works are completed, which will be next June, fountains will add their charms to the loveliness of the gardens.
Houston street, the widest business street and sharing with Com- merce the honor of being the main commercial thoroughfares of the city, is a comparatively new street. The improvement of this street from Alamo Plaza to Soledad street, on both sides of which are solid blocks of buildings, among which are the Moore and Hicks buildings, the two most complete and largest office buildings in the city ; the widen- ing of the street at its western end; the diverting of the street car lines along this thoroughfare-all this measures the growth of the city since 1878.
There are (in 1906, taking the figures of the latest annual of the Business Men's Club) 425 miles of streets, seventy-one miles macada- mized and fourteen paved with asphalt, mesquite blocks and vitrified brick. A recent law makes provision for improvement districts, where- by designated localities can, by a majority vote, make needed improve- ments, the expense applying to the property owners of the respective im- provement districts. Several such districts have been organized, result- ing in the expenditure of a vast amount of money for street improve- ments.
The windings of San Antonio river and of San Pedro creek neces- sitate numerous bridges. From the time. fifty or sixty years ago, when there was only one wooden bridge across the river, on Commerce street, to the present, when seventeen large iron bridges span the San Antonio river in the center of the city, and all told, 2,438 bridges and culverts of all classes are in use within the city limits. A vast amount of municipal progress has taken place, and it is by means of such comparisons alone that it is possible to realize the greatness of the twentieth century San Antone.
Parks.
Several pictures have been presented, on other pages, of the plazas of San Antonio in the earlier periods of her history. The plazas were not beauty spots at that time. The parks and plazas are as much reason for pride now as any department of the city.
The city has twenty-two parks and plazas, embracing 3771/2 acres. These are kept in excellent condition under the supervision of a park commissioner, and are made especially attractive by a preponderance of
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tropical and semi-tropical trees, shrubs and flowers. The largest in area is Brackenridge Park, which contains 200 acres, and in point of natural beauty is not excelled on the continent. (See sketch of G. W. Brackenridge.) San Pedro Park1 embraces forty acres and is a place of rare natural beauty, which has been greatly enhanced by recent im- provements.
It is no exaggeration to claim that San Antonio is one of the most sanitary and cleanest cities of America. Its situation within the yellow fever zone makes it imperative that extreme vigilance in this direction should be exercised. Yet, even when sanitary conditions were worst, during the years following the war, this pest never became a scourge in the city. The cholera plague during the sixties was followed by effective measures for cleanliness of streets and home premises, and in recent years the efforts to keep the city wholesome have become crystal- lized as habit with the health department.
There is a splendid sewer system, constructed by the city a few years ago at a cost of $500,000. There are nearly eighty miles of sewers, and the greater part of the city is connected with them. Connections are constantly forced and made wherever possible. Five dollars is the pen- alty for expectoration on the sidewalks, in street cars or public places. and for throwing trash in the streets. Street cleaning and surface san- itation is extensively carried out, and San Antonio has more sanitary wagons, sprinkling and sweeping apparatus at work than any other city of its size in the country.
Water Works.
The quotation from the San Antonio Herald of 1878 in regard to the streets mentioned the early completion of the water works system. This was another institution so essential to city growth that has been established within the time covered by this chapter. San Antonio has a complete and modern waterworks system, owned by a private cor- poration, using 128 miles of water mains. All water is obtained from fourteen artesian wells, having a capacity of 40,000,000 gallons per day. The water is second to that of no other city in point of purity. There are nineteen other artesian wells in the city, ranging in depth from 700 to 2,200 feet, with a joint capacity per day of 41,000,000 gallons.
Previous to the building of the water works the city had depended upon the irrigation ditches and wells. But the water question was in constant agitation from the date of the last visitation of cholera in 1866.
1San Pedro Springs was for many years the popular resort of the Germans. A writer in the '70s said: "The San Pedro is commonly known as a creek, but has many a beautiful nook along its banks: and in one of them the Germans have established their beer garden, at what is called the 'San Pedro Springs.' There, in the long Sunday afternoons, hundred of families are gathered, drink- ing beer, listening to music and singing, playing with the fawns, or gazing into the bear garden and the den of the Mexican panther. There. too, the Turnverein takes its exercise; and in a long hall dozens of German children waltz, under the direction of a gray-haired old professor, while two spectacled masters of the violin make music. This is the Sunday rendezvous of great numbers of the citizens of San Antonio, Germans and Americans, and is as merry, as free from vulgarity and quarreling, as any beer garden in Dresden the fair."
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But it was not till April 3, 1877, that the original contract was entered between the city and J. B. LaCoste and associates for the construction of a water works plant, using the head waters of the San Antonio river for supply. The work was to be begun "six months from the date of the arrival of the railroad" and to be finished within fifteen months after the date of the contract. The plant was constructed and accepted by the city July 5, 1878. It required time to educate the people generally to utilize the water system, but as years went by the older residents were weaned from the river and creek which early writers say were so com- monly used for bathing and laundry purposes.
Population.
The estimated population of the chief cities of Texas June 30, 1906, as made public by the census office is as follows :
San Antonio
62,71I
Houston
58,132
Dallas . 52,793
Galveston .34,336
Fort Worth 27,096
Austin
. 25,292
Waco
24,443
El Paso
. 19,242
Beaumont 13,000
Apropos of this estimate there recently appeared the following editorial in one of the San Antonio papers :
Greater San Antonio.
The next three years promise to be strenuous, ones for the three larger cities of Texas. San Antonio, Houston and Dallas will compete for commercial suprem- acy.
Both Houston and Dallas have experienced booms in valuations, and realty in those cities is held at much higher figures than have been obtained for similar locations in San Antonio. This city has a very large conservative element that is strongly opposed to fancy prices and "wild cat" speculation. Its growth, in fact its very existence, has been due to climatic advantages and its location on the great southern pathway of transcontinental and international travel, as well as being the great business gateway between this country and Mexico. These lines were laid out during the early days of wagon traffic, and the enterprising railroad builders of later days have been able to find no better. The unanimity with which they have verified the wisdom of the early pioneers in their selection of this line of travel proves that sentiment and speculation has not entered into the matter. It has been truly said that natural advantages have been often proved to be serious obstacles to material progress, but the growth of this city proves that this "obstacle," if indeed it is an obstacle, has not operated against San Antonio to any serious extent.
True we have no large manufacturing plants, yet this city has continued to grow even during years of general financial depression, and the class of citizens who have sought this city as a home has not been composed of adventurers and speculators, but rather of those who, having a competence, have selected this city for its actual merits as a home with an assured future that guarantees a rea- sonable increase in present property values.
As a resident city there is none like it. With its delightful climate, its pure water, its historic shrines, its many beautiful parks, its attractive driveways, the United States military post and headquarters of the department of Texas, its quaint mingling of the old and new, and the cosmopolitan character of its citizens,
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the best representatives of every American state and almost every civilized country in the world, it stands today without an equal. With such attractions it is but natural that our hotel accommodations have proved inadequate to the demands of tourists and homeseekers during the past winter.
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