USA > Texas > A Twentieth century history of southwest Texas, Volume I > Part 44
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As has been said, our people are largely home builders. Many of them came here seeking a home with congenial surroundings. The speculative element seeks boom centers without regard for refining influences. Such have sought other points for their operations. Thus local realty values have been kept within con- servative limits considerably below those that prevail in much less desirable locali- ties. But it does not require a keen speculator to appreciate the fact that there are business opportunities here that as yet have been barely touched. These busi- ness opportunities will not be neglected much longer.
The next three years are big with promise for "Greater San Antonio." No spirit of rivalry, no feverish grasping for commercial or numerical supremacy will enter into the development of neglected opportunities. Supremacy will crown the historical city of the Alamo, but it will not be the result of business intrigue nor by the detraction of the merits of other cities. San Antonio has always grown and is growing and will continue to grow because of its own natural advantages and their recognition and development by its own citizens. There will be no boom tactics employed and no exaggerated statements will be sent out to detract from others nor to inflate local actualities.
Local property values have advanced and are now advancing, but they will show a much greater advance in the near future. With increased hotel facilities, which are now assured, and the resulting development of other local enterprises, all of which will be realized within the next three years, the growth will be accom- plished that will be heralded by the United States census of 1910 as the first rank among the Lone Star cities for Greater San Antonio.
One of the closest arguments with reference to the increasing pros- perity of San Antonio was recently published by Charles N. Kight, sec- retary of the Business Men's Club. It is as follows :
Replying to a communication from a prominent banking institution of the city. asking for his views on the financial condition of the Southwest, Secretary Charles N. Kight, of the San Antonio Business Men's Club, submitted a most interesting article on present prosperity and future prospects, based on data which he has compiled in an official capacity. Mr. Kight's communication follows :
The statistics I present and my own estimate of conditions existing, and future probabilities, are based entirely upon the operations of the national bank system. If it were possible for me to command statistics covering the private and other banking institutions the figures would be materially increased, but by con- fining my exhibit to operations of National banks, sufficient evidence is presented to substantiate the assertion that we are enjoying a degree of prosperity without parallel, and that we can look with supreme confidence to its continuance, on account of favorable conditions now existing.
This organization. as you understand, stands for San Antonio and Southwest Texas first, last and all the time, and while we are congratulating ourselves on the wonderful development in the territory named covering recent years, our greater source of satisfaction is found in the phenomenal exhibit pertaining directly to the city of San Antonio.
Southwest Texas National Banks.
In the section strictly known as Southwest Texas there are fifty-three National banks, the financial condition of which, in 1903, is presented in the following exhibit :
Capital employed $ 4.375.500 1,234,609
Surplus Deposits 12,227,750
Since the year 1903 the placing of large crops of fruits and vegetables on the Northern market. embracing several thousand carloads each year; the sale of over one-half million acres of land for agricultural purposes, and the increased value and yield of all products common to that territory would seem to justify
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the assumption that the surplus and deposit line in the fifty-three banks referred to has been increased at least 100 per cent, and, if so, the amount of surplus in those banks on the first day of January. 1907, would be $2,469,218, and the amount of deposits would be on the first day of January $24,455.500.
The most surprising exhibit is embraced in the showing of the San Antonio National banks during that period.
Surplus. 1903 1906
$ 258,000 4,101,000
Ratio of gain for three years, 1589 per cent.
Same ratio for three years ending 1909, $65.205,000,
Deposits. 1903 1906
$ 4,152,152 12,000,000
Ratio of gain for three years. 200 per cent.
Same ratio for three years ending 1909. $32,800,000.
While in my judgment the ratio of gain credited the San Antonio National banks during the past three years, and probably for the three years to come, could not be consistently credited to Southwest Texas for the same period, still I feel confident that no criticism will result if the claim that the ratio of surplus and deposits as shown to-day will show in 1909 an increase of over 300 per cent, leaving out the banks of San Antonio.
My reasons for looking into the future so hopefully are that large syndicates have bought many thousand acres of land in Southwest Texas, and have a small army of representatives traversing Central and Western States endeavor- ing to originate an interest in those tracts with a view to having them occupied by prominent settlers. Those transfers of land from original owners to svndi- cates and in turn to the individual farmer will continue until all the desirable agricultural land in Southwest Texas is utilized. This opinon is based upon my judgment that the only desirable cheap lands for development in the United States are in Texas, particularly in Southwest Texas. Southwest Texas has the advantage over any other portion of the state because of the early maturity of crops, insuring their being placed on the Northern markets at a time when they command the maximum prices.
Referring to local matters. The several committees of the Business Men's Club are so active in the discharge of the duties assigned them that great results have attended their efforts, and corresponding results inust be anticipated in the future. The Jobbers' and Manufacturers' League, by offering attractive induce- ments to merchants to deal here. have extended the sphere of trade influence of San Antonio until it reaches bevond the borders of Texas into Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Indian Territory. New Mexico and the Republic of Mexico. The home industry committee has established a reputation for goods manufactured in San Antonio to the extent that home made goods are. as a rule, preferred, necessitat- ing the enlargement of many of the manufacturing plants. The activity of the real estate committee of the Business Men's Club and the general advertising com- mittee. in attracting attention to the opportunities for investment in San Antonio, has created such a demand for San Antonio real estate, and created such a desire for homes among our people. that the columns of our daily papers are burdened with accounts of transfers and permits for the construction of residences, number- ing as high as 207 in one month; the average number of residential permits per month for the last thirty-nine months being 106.
And last but not least on the list are the operations of the Bexar County Farmers' Institute, which meets in the Business Men's Club on the last Saturday of each month. This institute has been in active operation for over three years ; is largely attended by the farmers of the county, and .a spirit of emulation exists as to who can show the best results. All the latest methods in farming are readily considered, and special attention is being paid to the new system of soil culture whereby it is claimed that prolific crops can be grown without irrigation, if the rules laid down by this system are properly observed. In fact the operation of the Business Men's Club as a whole, working through its directors and through
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the several committees of the organization, has been a very important factor in ushering in the era of prosperity now existing, not only in this city but in South- west Texas. I can safely pledge corresponding zea! and activity in the future for this organization and its several committees, and we fear no adverse conditions unless brought about bv severe drouth, conditions which are very improbable from the fact that we are educating our farmers to pursue the Campbell system of soil culture, which would minimize the effects of any drouth, even if as severe as the one or two instances in the remote past. Extensive cultivation. and the placing of so much water on the soil by artesian wells is credited with radical changes in our climate, resulting in a liberal and sufficient rainfall.
San Antonio a Jobbing Center.
The following quotation from the Express, in March, 1907, presents more exhaustive comment on the wholesale business of the city, referred to earlier in the chapter :
The spring advertising campaign of the San Antonio Jobbers' League has opened in earnest with the placing of contracts for 75,000 lines of advertising in the papers of this state. The Jobbers' League is using newspaper advertising exclusively this year. The advertisements were placed in The Daily Express, Houston Post, Austin Statesman, Houston Chronicle, Monterey News, Freie Presse and the Canada syndicate of twenty papers in Southwest Texas.
Speaking of the growth of the jobbing interests of San Antonio, W. F. Gohlke, treasurer of the League, said last evening :
"Three years ago San Antonio was the jobbing center of a small territory immediately contiguous. To-day it is the largest jobbing center in the state and a rival of every other jobbing center in the state. It is rapidly extending its territory into Northern Mexico and reaching into the undeveloped fields of Southwest Texas that are soon to be reached by railroads.
"A short time ago it was not thoroughly developed as a jobbing center. To-day it has houses representing every line of the trade, and the merchants of Texas and Mexico realize that they can do business to better advantage in this city.
"The advertisements of the Jobbing League are running this week in twenty- six papers, covering the entire state. The League began with thirty members. It now has fifty members and has begun a new era of development within the last fifteen months. It is now looking forward to the most prosperous season the busi- ness interests of San Antonio have ever known.
"San Antonio began its career as a jobbing center when its League organ- ized and began advertising in The Express. The returns showed the possibilities of further operations and the advertising and aggressive campaign was continued until the jobbing interests of San Antonio now have branch offices and traveling men with headquarters in Houston, Waco and other centers of territories which it was thought this city could not operate in.
"A campaign is now in progress to make this city the jobbing center of the Sante Fe branch from Temple to San Angelo and the territory around Brown- wood and Brady. This city is now preparing to handle the business that will develop when railroads open the territory about Fredericksburg."
The recent enormous increase in the wholesale trade of this city has a double meaning to those interested in development. It means that San Antonio is standing the final test that will determine whether it is to retain forever its present position as the metropolis of the southwestern section of this state.
San Antonio many years ago was safe on account of being the oldest city in the state and having the best railroad connections. Its tributary territory stretched awav on every side an indefinite distarce, but it produced nothing more than cattle. Within the last few years this territory has developed at a remark- able rate. Ranches which were considered too large to be disturbed for many years have been cut into forms and irrigated.
Instead of the old cattle trail leading to the little railroad station. the produce from irrigated farms and truck gardens now pours through on trains during winter
-
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HISTORY OF SOUTHWEST TEXAS
and summer. This has created a demand for a wholesale and shipping center. Some city must rise to meet the demand of the community. A distributing point was needed for the thousands of tons of freight, consisting of supplies of every kind, for the tributary territory. At the same time the demand was created for a central location where the products of many small farms could be massed for further shipment.
The trend of the trade of a vast territory is always fickle. It has been known in the history of both the country and the state to change as the country developed, and leave a city that had been considered destined to greatness a village, while other cities grew in proportion to the country's development.
There has never been a doubt in the minds of San Antonians but that this city would retain its position as metropolis of the coming agricultural country of the world.
At every meeting of business men in this city for many months nothing but prosperity has been reported. The jobbers are not only covering their own terri- tory to the exclusion of all others, but the local jobbers' league is planning an aggressive advertising campaign that will declare not only the Southwest, but the entire state, as the territory to be covered. With the development of the coun- try more firms are establishing local or state headquarters in this city, in order to compete actively and successfully with the firms now having headquarters in the cities of North Texas.
The coming of more state and district headquarters, with better facilities for shipping in supplies and sending out the local products, has created an unprece- dented demand for warehouses and office buildings. Business, with its never ending activity, is rounding out and developing every part of the city, from the business centers to the remotest suburbs. The business interests feel that the tide has been turned their way and the rest of the struggle will be easy.
GEORGE W. BRACKENRIDGE, president of the San Antonio National Bank, a position which he has occupied since 1866, and best known of the philanthropists and public spirited benefactors of San Antonio, was born on a farm near Boonville, Indiana, in 1832, his parents being Hon. John A. and Isabella (McCulloch) Brackenridge. The father was born, reared and educated in Washington, D. C., and during the pioneer epoch of southern Indiana settled near Boonville. Although living on a farm he was a lawyer by profession and was accounted one of the distinguished members of the Indiana bar in early days. He was likewise an in- fluential representative in the Indiana legislature during its sessions. In the '3os he visited Texas and finally established his home in this state, settling in Jackson county on the Navidad river, where he died in 1862. when about sixty-two years of age, his birth having occurred in 1800. His wife died in later years in San Antonio.
George W. Brackenridge began his education in one of the old country schcolhouses near Boonville and continued his studies in De- laney College and other institutes, whereby he acquired a liberal educa- tion. The year 1851 witnessed his arrival in Texas but soon afterward he returned to the east and took up the study of law in the law school at Harvard University. He has never practiced law as a profession but has found his knowledge of the utmost benefit in an active business ca- reer. His initial business experience was as a clerk at Port Lavaca, Texas, and subsequently he engaged in business at Seguin, in Guadalupe county. At a later date he went to his father's home in Jackson county, where he became a member of the business firm of Brackenridge, Bates & Company, of which he was the founder and which was discontinued during the Civil war. George W. Brackenridge was a stanch Union man,
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opposed to slavery and secession and during the war occupied a respon- sible position as special business agent in Texas for the United States government. Three of his brothers, however, James M., John T. and Robert J. Brackenridge, were soldiers of the Confederate army. The first two mentioned became officers of distinction and after the war set- tled in Austin, where both passed away, while Robert J. Brackenridge, following the close of hostilities, took up the study of medicine and is now a prominent physician of Austin.
Soon after the close of the war, in 1866, George W. Brackenridge established and became president of the San Antonio National Bank, the second bank to be organized in Texas under the national banking act. Practically the same interests have remained behind it from the begin- ning, Mr. Brackenridge having served continuously throughout its ex- istence as its president. In proof of his business standing and the recog- nition of his unassailable business integrity, it is cited that he was en- tirely without capital when he organized the bank but that the money was furnished him by Charles Stillman, of Brownsville, Texas, a wealthy man of very extensive business interests and practically the father of the business development of the southwestern part of the state. Since its establishment the San Antonio National Bank has been the United States (lepository. A safe, conservative policy was inaugurated that has always been maintained and the course instituted won such a degree of public confidence that the bank entered almost immediately upon a period of prosperous existence, while the years have witnessed a continuous growth in its business.
Viewed from a business standpoint the life of George W. Brack- enridge has been a success, but it is not this alone which has won for him prominence and honors which are accorded him. His work as a philanthropist has made him still more widely known and San Antonio history presents him as a benefactor of its schools, its homes, its asylums and all those interests which tend toward the amelioration of hard con- ditions of life or have for their object the uplifting of humanity. En- tirely free from ostentation and display in his charitable benefactions he gives without publicity except that which must come in the management of the business of the different institutions which have profited by his generous donations.
Brackenridge Park.
He gave to the city Brackenridge Park, one of the most beautiful in the south. Concerning this park George Wharton James of Boston, one of the editors of the Arena, recently said: "Brackenridge Park is the most magnificent piece of parking in the United States that has come under my observation. It cannot be improved. It would be a shame to attempt to modernize that magnificent tract of sylvan loveliness by de- molishing its native beauty and instituting in its stead geometrically pre- cise figures in variegated blossoms, hedge-rows of exact proportions, sun dials in many colored plants and the like to which the popular science of landscape gardening is now universally leading. You would derive only a fantastic kaleidoscope in which art would make beautiful, of course, but artificially ruin. You have now a woodland that is unsur-
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passed, traversed by excellent driveways, into which it is a boon to plunge for an hour or two to relieve the fatiguing monotony of city life. Man, you know, still has traces of savage instincts, and he delights in com- muning with nature in her visible forms as his forefathers did centuries ago when the landscape was his recreation ground."
Public Schools.
Mr. Brackenridge's name is inseparably associated with the cause of public education wherein his interest chiefly centers. The present public school system of San Antonio is largely the result not only of his bounty but of the personal effort and donation that he has given to the establishment and development of the schools. Of the great sociological and economic questions of education of the public in many years he regarded as the most vitally important the question of the education of the masses. This interest has grown with the years and while working toward the ideal he has been cognizant of the practical in his utilization of the means at hand to accomplish results. He is especially solicitous about the education of the girls, deeming that in the proper education and training of the girls, the future mothers, lies the salvation of the race. He believes firmly in co-education and his efforts are always directed toward assisting institutes of that character. As early as 1852, while in Seguin, he became one of a committee of twenty that furnished the money and built the school there. He has been a liberal contributor to the State University, at Austin, board of regents. In the reconstruction days following the war he put forth strenuous and effective effort to secure educational facilities through the Freedman's Bureau and other ways. His benefactions to the San Antonio schools, beginning early in the 'zos and continued to the present time, have been most liberal. His largest donation to the public school system of the city, made in June, 1906, is the Carr Hill school in the western part of the city, which Mr. Brackenridge built especially for the benefit of the Mexican children, so numerous in that thickly populated district. Another recent gift of mag- nitude was for the manual training department of the Navarro school. The greatest regret was felt and expressed throughout the city when he resigned from the presidency of the school board because of the stress of private business and his frequent absence from San Antonio. Said F. W. Cook, Jr., who was elected to succeed Mr. Brackenridge as presi- dent, "He was the first president of the San Antonio school board when it was organized eight years ago. He has been connected with the pres- ent board for two years and we have come to realize his immense value to education in this city and in the state," while Dr. J. S. Lankford of the board said: "Of course I deeply regret that Mr. Brackenridge finds it necessary to resign, for his information is broad and his judgment sound and his interest in schools is deep and strong, but I don't by any means consider him separated from school affairs. His love for the school children is such that he will continue to serve the schools quietly but effectively." As long as the public school system of San Antonio endures it will be a monument to the efforts, help and interest of George W. Brackenridge.
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JUDGE THOMAS M. PASCHAL, of whom can be cited various tangible proofs of public-spirited citizenship and lofty principles of true democ- racy, has attained high honors and accomplished great good as a lawyer and member of Congress. Having now retired from public life, he is devoting his attention exclusively to the practice of law in San Antonio. He was born in Rapides Parish in Louisiana, a son of Isaiah A. and Mary C. (Richardson) Paschal. He is descended from Huguenot an- cestry in the paternal line, representatives of the name fleeing to North Carolina after the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685. When the tyrannical monarch, Louis XIV, revoked that edict and most rigorous persecution of the Huguenots followed, tens of thousands of the best and most pious people of France fled to other lands in order that they might have freedom to worship God according to the dictates of con- science and it was thus that the Paschal family was founded in North Carolina. Of a later generation was William Paschal, great-grandfather of Judge Paschal, who spent his entire life in "the old north state." His son. George Paschal, was born in Granville, North Carolina, in 1760 and died in Augusta, Georgia, in 1832. Both he and his father were loyal soldiers of the American army in the war of the Revolution. George Paschal wedded Miss Agnes Brewer, who died in Big Savannah, Georgia, in 1869, at the very advanced age of ninety-four years. She was of Scotch- Irish lineage. Among the sons of George and Agnes Paschal was Judge George W. Paschal, who was a member of the supreme court of Arkan- sas, and in 1846 removed to Texas where he gained distinction as a lawyer and author, crowning his career by the compilation of a volumi- nous digest of the laws of Texas, "Paschal's Annotated Digest of Our Supreme Court Decisions." He died in Washington, D. C., about 1877, while extending his labors in legal literature. Another son is Franklin L. Paschal, an honored pioneer of Texas, who for forty years has been a resident of San Antonio.
Isaiah Addison Paschal, still another son of George and Agnes Paschal; was born in Auravia, Georgia, in 1807 and became a member of the bar at Alexandria, Louisiana, where he practiced successfully for many years and served as district attorney, also as state senator and probate judge. He continued a member of the bar at that place until 1845. In the spring of 1844 he wedded Mary C. Richardson, a daughter of William Richardson, of Fredericksburg, Virginia, who died in that city in 1837 in his fifty-eighth year, while his wife passed away in San Antonio in 1849 at the age of sixty-three years. On leaving Louisiana. Judge I. A. Paschal and his wife came to San Antonio, where he resided from 1846 until his death in 1869. He was one of the able and learned lawyers of the bar of this city, gaining a representative clientage and acting as counsel for the prosecution or defense in most of the important cases tried in the courts of the district. He was a man of distinct and forceful individuality and his fitness for leadership led to his selection for senatorial honors and for a number of years he was a member of the Texas senate, where he took an active part in framing constructive leg- islation and securing the passage of many enactments that have proved of direct and immediate serviceableness to the state. He was an able, eloquent speaker, possessing superior oratorical ability, and was a man
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