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Parks and Recreation Department
A Departmental History

SAN ANTONIO PARKS: A 280 YEAR LEGACY

San Antonio, founded by the Spanish in 1718, traces its parks’ legacy to the early 1730s when the Spanish government granted public lands to the municipality. San Pedro Park, a portion of Brackenridge Park, Military, Main and Alamo Plazas, Market Square, Milam, Columbus, Pittman-Sullivan Parks and the City’s Eastside cemeteries are comprised of Spanish land grant property that has never left public ownership. Other public lands, once sold to private owners, have been returned to municipal use either through gift or sale. These include Mahncke, Travis, Maverick, Madison Square, and Crockett Parks.

Though the city’s parks and plazas were traditional public gathering spaces, municipal funding for park development was virtually non-existent until the 1870s. Until that time, the public squares were simply dirt patches that had become brushy eyesores littered with trash. When the city’s economy improved after the Civil War and the railroad arrived in 1877, businesses and new residential areas began to develop around these “parks,” and citizens petitioned elected officials to clean and improve the public spaces. The City Council voted in 1873 to fence and irrigate Travis Park, and by 1882, had reserved funds to cultivate trees and install fencing and gravel walks in Madison Square and for “improvement and ornamentation of Main and Alamo Plazas.” The following year, residents petitioned the City to beautify the city’s former public cemetery and name it Milam Square.

Local amateur horticulturalist, Anton F. Wulff, played a leading role in the early beautification of San Antonio’s parks and plazas. It is said that Wulff’s success led to creation of the office of park commissioner, and that he was the first to hold the position. It was not until 1886 however, that J.T. Massey was hired as “park keeper.” Four years later, Council also funded the jobs of park inspector and park commissioner, but staffing fluctuated with the unstable economy of the 1890s. When respected local businessman Ludwig Mahncke was appointed Park Commissioner in 1901, the office gained new stature and stable funding. The City Beautiful movement also made citizens more aware of the importance of parks, open spaces and monuments, and San Antonio residents expressed their desire for more park lands.

George W. Brackenridge donated 199 acres of his Head-of-the-River estate to the City for a public park in 1899 at a time when the city’s population was growing and its economy was recovering from the depression of the 1890s. The Park Commissioner position was filled by Ray Lambert in 1915, and under his direction, the park inventory grew from 350 acres in 1917 to 600 acres in 1923. Many of these were small neighborhood parks to serve the city’s expanding suburbs. Large tracts were also needed, and a successful bond issue in 1919 allowed the City to purchase Riverside Park and Olmos Basin. In 1928, the City funded a new recreation department to provide supervised programming at its growing number of parks, and the Parks and Recreation Department was organized in 1952. The city owned 2,054 acres of park land by 1950, and bond issues in 1961, 1964, 1970, 1994, and 1999 assured continued funding for acquisition. By February 2004, the City’s park land inventory included 193 park sites totaling 15,546 acres.

February 2004
Compiled by Maria Watson Pfeiffer