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City of San Antonio
Parks & Recreation Department

La Villita
A History

S. Alamo and Nueva Streets

The roots of La Villita go back to the 18th century. Its first residents likely were squatters with no legal title to their land. Located a short distance south of Mission San Antonio de Valero (later known as the Alamo), the area was part of the mission's lower farmlands or Labores de Abajo. Here, the San Antonio River was easily forded, and in 1729 a dam was built to divert water into the Pajalache Acequia, the irrigation ditch that carried water to the mission fields located further south. The mission lands were considered valuable by the residents of the Villa de San Fernando, the nearby civilian settlement, and the Presidio San Antonio de Bexar, the military garrison entrusted with the protection of the area, both located across the river on its lower, west bank. The proximity of the military at the presidio offered protection from Indian raids and allowed people to build their houses, raise their crops, and graze their animals in peace.

When the Presidio of Adaes in East Texas was closed in 1773 and its residents moved to Mission San Antonio de Valero, competition for desirable property increased and the growing population settled on lands surrounding the mission. In 1792, the Conde de Sierra Gorda noted that a fairly large settlement of families, most of them agregados (squatters), had grown up adjacent to Mission San Antonio de Valero and just outside the Villa de San Fernando.

By the 1780s, Mission San Antonio de Valero was in decline, and in 1793 the official order was given to distribute the surrounding lands among the mission Indians and the resident Spanish soldiers and civilians. From 1795 until 1809, the Pueblo de Valero, as La Villita was then called, had its own government with an elected alcalde (mayor), Don Vicente de Amador. The pueblo had a population of 103 in 1795 and 153 in 1808. In 1809, the pueblo, the Villa de San Fernando, the Presidio San Antonio de Bexar, and the surrounding missions were united to form the town that later came to be called San Antonio.

The population of La Villita was bolstered in 1803 by members of the Second Flying Company of San Carlos de Parras, a company of cavalry soldiers from Coahuila, which was garrisoned in Mission San Antonio de Valero's abandoned compound. Many of the soldiers came from the village of El Alamo de Parras, and this association probably caused the old mission to become known later as "The Alamo."

Led by Father Miguel Hidalgo, Mexico revolted against Spain in 1810, and during this time San Antonio experienced political turmoil and violence. Local citizens supporting the revolution, some of whom lived in La Villita, had their property confiscated by Spanish loyalists. To make matters worse, the town was devastated by a catastrophic flood on July 5, 1819. Though there was heavy loss of life and property, La Villita was spared because of its location on the high bank of the river. Citizens like Juan Courbiere, son of the French-born Andres Courbiere, a local soldier and Indian interpreter, looked to the area to build their new homes and petitioned for land on higher ground.

Located as it was between an old military garrison to the south and the Alamo to the north, La Villita was the site of revolutionary activity during the Texas war for independence against Mexico. On November 2, 1835, local resident Samuel A. Maverick, who later became one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence, wrote "nothing done today, but a little firing at long distances and without effect, at the picket guards of the Mexicans in the edge of La Villita."

Tradition maintains that General Martin Perfecto de Cos, a brother-in-law of Mexico's President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, surrendered to the Texan commander, General Edward Burleson, after the five-day Siege of Bexar in December 1835 at the Villita Street building today called the Cos House.

The Mexican army entrenched immediately south of La Villita on the current site of the Fairmount Hotel. Mexican soldier Jose Enrique de la Pena wrote: "during the night some construction was undertaken to protect the line that had been established at La Villita under orders of Colonel Morales," commander of the San Luis Battalion. The Texans later burned the small houses near this battalion. Defeated at the Alamo on March 6, 1836, the Texans were victorious a month later at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, thereby winning their independence from Mexico.

Physician, geologist, and botanist John Leonard Riddell, who visited San Antonio on September 25, 1839, described the construction he observed in the La Villita area: "Four-fifths of the houses are thatched with a kind of reed, the cat tail flag it may be, but I think it is some kind of sledge or grass. Some are in progress of erection on the Alamo side of the river." Riddell went on to describe houses built of timbers set on end, bound with thongs of rawhide, and plastered inside. This style of construction, called palisado, once common in La Villita, is illustrated today only in the Cirilus Gissi House, which was moved several blocks to its present site and restored in 1969.

But peace did not bring stability to San Antonio. The threat of Mexican invasion was considered real and the possibility of Indian raids continued. One traveler noted: "A few American families that resided here have all abandoned the place in consequence of war difficulties. There being only 20 or 30 young Americans there who are continually moving out and back as the chances of invasion ebb and flow."

The 3,488 residents of San Antonio in 1850 were a multicultural lot, but Mexicans, Americans, and Germans dominated the scene. Noted landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, during his 1857 visit to San Antonio, remarked that "the triple nationalities break out into the most amusing display." But living side by side with the three dominant groups were slaves and people of Irish, French, and English extraction.

As the city's character changed, so did the character of La Villita, which became a neighborhood of many cultures. Justo Esquida sold "one house and lot" to James M. Downs in 1846, Colonel Jeremiah Dashiell built a raised cottage on Villita Street about 1850, and cartman Fernando Courbiere, son of early La Villita settler Juan Courbiere and his wife Angela Chacon, sold property to their relative Rafael Herrera, who built his home in 1854. The two-story Otto Bombach store and house was built at Villita and Alamo Streets in 1856. Opposite it, cabinetmaker Samuel W. McAllister built two houses in 1854 and 1855, one for himself and the other later sold to Polish exile and banker Erasmus A. Florian. South of La Villita, German Lutherans purchased land in 1859 to build St. John's Church. By 1860, San Antonio's census counted 8,000 residents. Among those living in and around La Villita were F. Schenck, keeper of a beer saloon, Concepcion Reyes, owner of a "House of Goods," cartmen Joe Garza and Francis Flores, and dry goods merchant A.R. Lee.

A general description of the town from an October 1858 San Antonio newspaper article could apply to La Villita as well: "While the stately mansions of the wealthy command our admiration and greatly adorn the city wherever they may be located, it is the tasteful humble dwellings, making out in every direction from the noise and dust of the commercial parts of a city, that give it its greatest charm."

By 1865, after a building lull brought about by the Civil War, local newspapers reported that residential and commercial construction was again underway. La Villita was a growing neighborhood once more. Ernest Hessler bought prime land on South Presa Street in 1869 from Juana Francisca Montes de Flores and built two rental houses. He later purchased an adjacent house, built about 1855 by Jose and Refugia Duran Tejeda, and the adjoining passageway became known as Hessler Street.

On Villita Street, the German bookkeeper Charles Bardenwerper and Henry Hall, an African- American, were neighbors. Jacob Kuehn, who owned a tailor shop, lived on the small alley called Nacional Street. Mrs. Kate Womble operated the famous boardinghouse that gave Womble Alley its name. Her daughter, Mrs. Julius Erckener, was quoted in the San Antonio Express of December 31, 1939: "Mother used to set one of the best tables in San Antonio and her trade included the best people in town."

By the late 1870s, La Villita was thriving. The neighborhood was home to stonecutters, watchmakers, telegraph operators, cabinetmakers, and lawyers. Boardinghouse and saloon keepers, dressmakers, doctors, and shoemakers all plied their trades in the area. The imposing McAllister grocery store was built at the corner of Villita and Alamo Streets about 1880. "In consideration of a desire to promote public morality and religion," as the inscription on its historical marker reads, the German Methodist Episcopal Church was built on Villita Street in 1879.

San Antonio's population grew from 12,200 in 1870 to 20,500 a decade later, and increasing numbers of both renters and owner-occupants made their homes in the La Villita neighborhood. Ernest Dosch and Ulrich Rische, proprietors of the city's famed Deer Horn Saloon, built a rental house on Presa Street in the early 1880s. Around the corner, plumber A.H. Shafer built his house on Nueva Street, connecting it to an older stone dwelling on Womble Alley. Louis Foutrel, whose family had owned the Cos House since 1847, became one of the area's largest property owners when he bought three houses in 1891, using one as his residence and renting the other two.

The character of the La Villita neighborhood changed again in the early 20th century. Longtime residents lived side by side with new businesses and institutions. In 1895, the city's first Episcopal church for African-Americans, St. Philip's, was organized and located in the old German Methodist Episcopal Church building on Villita Street. St. Philip's opened a vocational day school in 1898, and in 1902 Artemisia Bowden, a young African-American educator, became principal of the St. Philip's Parochial Day School, later known as St. Philip's Normal, Grammar, and Industrial School. The school expanded at this location until 1917, when it moved to the city's east side. The St. Philip's property was sold in 1922, and the Central Spiritualist congregation began meeting there.

The San Antonio Water Works bought the Cos House in 1905, and in 1917 the Texas Historical Landmarks Association placed a commemorative marker on the building. In 1934, the house was partially restored and used by the Yanaguana Society, founded in 1933 by local historian Frederick C. Chabot to promote research into San Antonio's early historical records. (Yanaguana was the name of the Payaya Indian village located at the site of present-day San Antonio in the 17th century.) The main power plant of the Electric Light Works (which later became the San Antonio Public Service Company) was built next to the Cos House, and small houses across Villita Street were razed to construct commercial buildings, including a machine shop, the Texas Eagle Publishing Company, and the Texas Ice Company.

Other new neighbors included the Dechman Coffee and Spice Mills, which operated from 1903 until 1928, and the New York Star Cleaning and Dye Works, built in 1911 on the site of two small 19th-century houses. Though Mrs. Womble's famous boardinghouse was demolished, other buildings were converted into apartments, including those vacated by St. Philip's School. After A.H. Shafer's death in 1912, his widow advertised "nicely furnished apartments with hot and cold running water, electric lights and gas by the week or month."

O'Neil Ford, who served as consulting architect for the La Villita restoration, recounted his first impression of the area in a 1976 interview: "When I first saw it, it was like 1926, and it was just the worst slum you ever saw. You wouldn't believe there'd be a slum in the middle of town like that- there were 26 families living in there and they had as many wrecked cars as you ever saw in your life, just piles of them."

San Antonio Mayor Maury Maverick, a former United States Congressman with close ties to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, had a vision for La Villita. He saw its possibilities as a restored village that would be "a symbol and monument to those simple people who had made possible the great city which had grown up around it." Maverick, strongly committed to the concept of pan-American unity, authored the La Villita ordinance that was adopted by the City Council on October 12, 1939, dedicating the project to "the promotion of peace, friendship and justice between the United States of America and all other nations in the Western Hemisphere."

The ordinance provided for the restoration and preservation of La Villita and for its continued existence. It also stipulated, however, that: "La Villita shall not and must not be a restoration and reconstruction of the dead past, and a ghost village for the mincing walk and dusty ways of scholars, but likewise for the average living citizen. Even a jitter-bug has the same constitutional right of life and liberty as the scholar who is crammed with knowledge and will not disgorge it. Moreover, there are more jitter-bugs than scholars."

The streets, houses, and plazas of La Villita were all renamed to commemorate the pan-American spirit. Juarez Plaza and Calle Hidalgo remembered Mexican heroes Benito Juarez and Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla; the San Martin House honored Jose de San Martin, who fought for independence in Argentina, Chile, and Peru; and the Caxias House recalled Brazil's most famous 19th century soldier and statesman, Luis Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias. Funding from the Carnegie Corporation and the City of San Antonio provided a library, museum, and community center, Bolivar Hall, dedicated to the memory of Simon Bolivar, the South American patriot who first envisioned the ideal of pan-American friendship and unity.

National Youth Administration (NYA) and city funds totaling $110,000 paid for a labor force of 110 unemployed youths, who worked for $15 a week to restore the village as a place where arts, crafts, and other cultural pursuits would converge and as a training ground for young artists and craftsmen. It took two months to clear and grade the site and complete selective demolition before the initial restoration of six houses began on October 9, 1939.

Architect O'Neil Ford and Project Superintendent E.M. Todd coordinated their work with the NYA crafts program under the supervision of artist Mary Vance Green. The crafts shops, housed in the old Villita Street power plant buildings, produced copper light fixtures and utensils, various kinds of ironwork including hinges for doors and windows, carved furniture and shutters, and weavings. Much of their production was used in the restoration of La Villita. Ceramist Harding Black built a kiln on-site to make decorative tiles and pavers for La Villita's buildings and plazas. Green, Black, and artist Blanding Sloan, metal worker Helen Solberg, and woodworker Frank Page trained unskilled workers to produce utilitarian and decorative objects for the La Villita restoration. The Women's Division of the Works Projects Administration (WPA), under the direction of artist Ethel Wilson Harris, designed and manufactured light fixtures and tile and iron tables that were used in La Villita.

Dedicated in May 1941, La Villita became a center for community events and home to artists and art galleries. Maury Maverick proudly showed the area to visiting dignitaries ranging from Eleanor Roosevelt to H.G. Wells. Until his death, Maverick referred to himself as the "Mayor of La Villita."

During World War II, the American Red Cross operated its war programs from La Villita, and after the war the restored area continued to grow and develop. In 1947, artist Warren Hunter restored a long-vacant house and rented it to Dr. Victor Alessandro, conductor of the San Antonio Symphony. Hamilton Magruder, who served as La Villita's resident manager until 1964, directed a theater in the La Villita church. Rose Bernard, who supervised cultural and educational programs for the city's Parks and Recreation Department produced puppet shows and dance performances. Ever-growing in popularity, the area was immortalized in songs such as In Old Villita and My Rita of La Villita.

Long involved in preservation projects around the city, the San Antonio Conservation Society also supported the city's restoration efforts in La Villita by purchasing and restoring several houses in the area: the Jeremiah Dashiell House in 1942, the Otto Bombach House in 1950, and the Louis Gresser House in 1976. Today the Society's annual fundraiser, A Night in Old San Antonio (NIOSA), brings more than 100,000 revelers to La Villita each April during the city's Fiesta celebration.

Since 1941, La Villita has grown beyond the original NYA project area. Key buildings were purchased by the city- the old St. Philip's property in 1947 and the McAllister building in 1949. In preparation for San Antonio's HemisFair in 1968, Plaza Nueva (today renamed Maverick Plaza) and the adjacent JoyKist Candy Company were acquired in 1965. A palisado (cedar-post- and-mortar construction) structure was moved to La Villita from the HemisFair grounds to show early construction techniques. Plaza Nueva was completed in 1970, and in 1974 La Villita was increased in size by 25 percent with the addition and restoration of five buildings that formerly housed the JoyKist Candy Company.

The City of San Antonio's La Villita Historic District, established in 1969, was extended to the south in 1975, and the area was entered in the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. Architect O'Neil Ford's fifty-year involvement with La Villita continued in 1981 when his firm, Ford, Powell and Carson, in association with Saldana, Williams and Schubert, designed and supervised renovation of the entire area.

La Villita is managed by the City of San Antonio's Department of Parks and Recreation, and its shops and boutiques continue the arts and crafts tradition envisioned by Maury Maverick in the 1930s. The atmosphere that O'Neil Ford sought to create "of cool shady places, of profuse banks of blossoming native trees and shrubs" has been achieved.

The description of the area in a 1939 WPA Writers' Project publication, Old Villita, is equally valid today: "The San Antonio of the distant past will be presented here, and on historic ground. Strife and turmoil may grip the outside world, but not this rejuvenated village of two centuries. Perhaps its future visitors may sense in it an unchangeable serenity, the seclusion and poise of time itself."

For a visual history of La Villita, visit the San Antonio Conservation Society's La Villita Exhibit at Bolivar Hall, second floor, open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.