Hit the Road – Self Guided Driving Tour

Make U-turn, follow route back to Hildebrand and
Broadway. Turn right on Hildebrand, continue over
281 until McCullough (see inset).
25
24
23
22
21
26
20
Hit the Road – Self Guided Driving Tour
San Antonio’s Commercial Corridors
18
19
Prior to the 1930’s, the majority of main roads leading out of downtown San Antonio were lined with a
mix of residential and commercial buildings. That all changed in 1938, when city council approved the
zoning of all those arterial streets as wholly commercial corridors. Development quickly spread along
Castroville Road, Fredericksburg Road, Laredo Highway and San Pedro Avenue, among many others.
Broadway and the Austin Highway
18

Broadway and Patterson Avenue –
Bus Shelter
Charles Baumberger, the founder of the Alamo
Portland Cement Company, originally
commissioned this trabajo rustico structure as a
streetcar stop for the city of Alamo Heights in
the 1920s. Craftsman Dionicio Rodriguez
created the palapa-style shelter out of concrete
sculpted to look like tree trunks supporting a
thatched roof. The structure, which now
functions as a bus shelter, was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
19

4940 Broadway – Broadway
Theater
When this dramatic Art Moderne theater
opened in 1939, it featured the latest in
streamlined design that characterized the
Intestate suburban theater chain. In addition to
modern architecture and bold neon, the theater
boasted a 75-ton air conditioning system to
attract patrons and keep them cool. The
theater continued to operate through 1981.
20

5146– 5150 Broadway – Stewart
Center
This shopping center was built c. 1940 and
originally housed a Winn’s Five and Ten (now
Gabriel’s Liquor), a post office (now Lion &
Rose Pub), and Patt’s Drug Store (now UPS).
H.C. “Pat” Patterson opened his pharmacy at
5150 Broadway in1941. The pharmacy featured
a soda fountain, which initially offered carhop
service. Patt’s became a neighborhood
institution, operating out of the Stewart Center
until 2000, when it moved to a new Broadway
location.
21 5424 Broadway – Pegasus Sign

Dallas-based Magnolia Oil (now Mobil) hired the
local architectural firm of Adams and Adams to
design this Spanish eclectic gas station. This
neon-lit, flying red horse first soared over the
service station at the corner of Broadway and
Austin Highway in 1934. When Mobil Oil sold
the station in 1985, the Conservation Society
worked successfully with the oil company and
the new owner to secure the future of the
distinctive Pegasus sign. The 1986 agreement
reached with Mobil Corporation represented the
first of its kind because it allowed the
company’s trademark to be on permanent loan
to a private entity: the Society's Foundation.
22

416 Austin Highway – Spacetone
Music
A more recent roadside building, it started out
as Jif-e-Mart #677 in 1973. This unique canopy
structure has gone through numerous uses and
name changes ever since. By 1976 it had
become Green Things Nursery, followed by a
liquor store, and then Five Broads Off
Broadway antique store.
23

1032 Austin Highway – Steele
Motel LOST
In 1937, O. V. Steele purchased the land to
build a motor court on the lucrative Austin
Highway. The twenty-one unit Steele Motel
featured stucco buildings, as stipulated by the
deed restrictions, and a pool. Although Steele
sold the property in 1941, the motel retained his
name. Until 1951, this property lay outside the
San Antonio city limits.
24

1150 Austin Highway – Bun-NBarrel
This roadside drive-in, topped by a one-ton,
concrete barrel sign, opened in 1950 and
became known for its BBQ. President Lyndon
Baines Johnson supposedly even sent the
secret service over to pick up an order for him,
whenever he visited San Antonio. Until the
1970s, customers received their root beer in
chilled glass mugs.
25

1201 Austin Highway – Earl Abel's
Sign
The neon signage from the original Earl Abel's
restaurant on the corner of Broadway and
Hildebrand was salvaged and moved in 2006,
prior to the original building's demolition. Fourfoot red letters spell out “Earl Abel's,” while
“Coffee Shop” and “Restaurant” appear in blue.
The seventeen-foot, kidney-shaped marquee
still proclaims, “This is Earl Abel's Restaurant,”
with a yellow arrow pointing the way.
26

Broadway, within the city limits of San Antonio, and Austin Highway, historically outside the city limits
to the north, functioned as the main auto route between San Antonio and Austin in the years before the
Interstate Highway System. These two roads not only served many of the day-to-day needs of local San
Antonians, but also those of travelers and tourists to the Alamo City. The area just north of downtown
became known as “Automobile Row,” with numerous auto showrooms, while motor courts and early
motels sprung up along Austin Highway. In between, the former streetcar suburb of Alamo Heights
developed with the slightly different feel of a small town main street, complete with a movie theater and
small-scale shopping centers.
3902 McCullough – Olmos
Bharmacy
L.D. Gilmore opened Gilmore's Pharmacy in
this building in 1938. The pharmacy, which also
featured a soda fountain, became a popular
place to meet over a milkshake. The name
changed to “Olmos Pharmacy” in 1950, but the
lettering on the clock above the entrance
proclaimed, “Olomos.” To the rear, in 1948 a
HEB grocery store was constructed, complete
with pylon sign, a relatively new feature
introduced to help attract the attention of a
society speeding by in their automobiles.
Many thanks to the generous support of our sponsors: Charlott’s Antiques, City of San Antonio District 1 Councilmember Diego Bernal, City of
San Antonio Office of Cultural Affairs, City of San Antonio Office of Historic Preservation, Downtown Alliance San Antonio, El Tropicano
Riverwalk Hotel, Grafxcowgirl Design, Jim’s Restaurants, Magic Lantern Castle Museum, MidTexMod, The NRP Group, Old Spanish Trail
Centennial Celebration, Olmos Bharmacy, San Antonio College, Texas Historical Commission, Trinity University.
9
8
7
6
17
16
15
5
14
13
4
3
12
11
2
10
1
El Tropicano
START
1
801 Broadway – Cavender Cadillac
Built in 1926 as a REO Motor Car Company
dealership. REO (pronounced as a single
word) was founded in 1904 by Ransom E. Olds,
who would later create Oldsmobile. The
company produced an early version of the
pickup truck, known as the Speedwagon. This
building has proven more enduring than the
rock band of the same name, although the
original windows have been altered.
2
900 Broadway – San Antonio
Overland Company
This building joined the ranks of several other
elegant car dealerships built along lower
Broadway in 1926. By 1930, however, it was
advertising itself as “San Antonio’s first used car
bargain basement,” inviting customers to “walk
down one flight of stairs and save.” The interior
of the building, now an antiques store, featured
ramps allowing cars to be driven up or down
from the ground floor.
3
1100 Broadway – Southern Music
The Sanderson Motor Company, an Essex and
Hudson auto dealer, opened in this location in
1926. However, the building became best
known as Southern Music, after the local music
company moved there in 1950. Southern not
only sold sheet music, but owned, published
and printed over 5,000 musical titles.
4
1130 Broadway – Mitchell Motors
Dodge Dealership LOST
O.R. Mitchell had this Art Moderne style
showroom built in 1949. To distinguish itself
from the many other dealership’s on lower
Broadway’s “automobile row,” the building
featured a distinctive curved façade facing
Broadway and a vertical pylon sign that read,
“DODGE.”
5
1508 Broadway – Pig Stand #29
Pig Stand restaurants started the nation’s drivein craze in Dallas in 1921, bringing innovations
such as Texas toast, onion rings, and carhops
to the Alamo city in 1926. This location opened
in 1931. A true survivor, it has become the last
operating Pig Stand restaurant in the state.
6
2201 Broadway – ButterKrust
Bakery
Richter’s ButterKrust Bakery building was built
in 1941 and expanded in 1948. Several
generations of San Antonians have fond
memories of visiting the plant as school children
to watch bread being baked until production
ceased in 1997. C.H. Guenther & Sons, Inc.,
which operates the Pioneer Flour Mill,
purchased the building in 2010 with plans to
renovate it as corporate headquarters with
additional office space for lease.
7
2218 Broadway – Kentucky Fried
Chicken
The first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise in
San Antonio opened further north on Broadway
in 1959 and was run by Earl Abel. This
restaurant, which was one of at least seven in
San Antonio at the time, was built c. 1973. Its
boxy design with a steeply peaked roof, cupola,
and weather vane matched an image from a
Flexi-Site Building catalog for 1970s KFC
franchise designs. At the time, the roof would
have been painted with alternating red and
white stripes, like a circus tent.
8
2222 N. Alamo at Broadway –
Playland Park LOST
Site of the amusement park Jimmy Johnson
opened in 1942 to entertain families and
soldiers stationed at Fort Sam Houston during
World War II. The park took up 15 acres and
included a 2,200 foot wooden roller coaster
known as “The Rocket,” as well as a vintage
1917 carousel, among its forty rides and
attractions. The park’s popularity kept it
operating until 1980.
9 2602 Broadway – Handy Andy
Grocery Store
This store, built by local architects Adams and
Adams in a “modernized Spanish” style, opened
in 1940. At 10,000 square feet, this Handy
Andy boasted the largest area of any grocery
store in San Antonio. It also featured the “new
fluorescent tube lighting, which is becoming so
universally popular.”
10

3006 Broadway – Jack in the Box
One of the first five Jack in the Box restaurants
opened in San Antonio, c. 1970. Jack in the
Box drive-through restaurants first came to
Texas in 1963, although the franchise didn’t
make it to San Antonio until 1969. Newspaper
ads from the 1970s included a diagram showing
customers how to use the drive through lane to
place and pick up their orders.
11

3015 Broadway – Kiddie Park
Kiddie Park has been touted as the nation’s
oldest public park for children under twelve and
is definitely one of the few surviving parks of its
kind that opened before WWII. Dating back to
1925, the amusement park still features many
of the original rides made by John Sterling
“Pops” Fears at the San Antonio Roller Works,
minus the roller coaster known as the “Little
Dipper.” New owners rescued the park from
decline in 2010.
12

3101 Broadway – Ranch Motel
Architect Phil Shoop designed this twentyseven unit, U-shaped motor court, which was
built in 1948 for Frank Daniels. Each Spanishtiled unit featured air conditioning, steam heat,
and could be radio-controlled from the main
office. It is one of the few local motor courts
from this era still operating as a motel.
13 3303 Broadway – Intercontinental

Motors
Local architect O’Neil Ford and his associate,
Howard Wong, designed this former auto
showroom in 1963. Ford’s demolition of the
exotic Spanish and Moorish-influenced home of
Mexican exile and surgeon Dr. Aureliano
Urrutia, which originally occupied the site,
proved controversial at the time. Ford did
manage to save many of the site’s large trees
and skillfully situated the glass frame building
among them so that they created a frame within
which cars were displayed.
14

3617 Broadway – Park Motel
Believed to be San Antonio's first motor court,
the Park Motel had forty-two rooms, each with
its own bathroom and carport, when built in
1931. The location proved popular with tourists
who couldn't get a motel room downtown during
HemisFair in 1968.
15

4108 Broadway – Jim's
16

4200 Broadway – Cheesy Jane's
Jim’s #6 at this location replaced an earlier El
Charro Restaurant in 1971. The popular
regional coffee shop was founded by Jim
Hasslocher, whose first venture in food service
was a watermelon stand in front of
Brackenridge Park in 1947.
Built c. 1958 as a Humble Oil service station
first operated by Floyd Baker. Humble was the
largest seller of gasoline in Texas at the time
and the first gasoline company to offer plastic
credit cards to its customers. Cheesy Janes’
burger and malt shop opened here in 2000,
using the 1950s era of the station as its theme.
17 4210 Broadway – Earl Abels’s

LOST
This was the site of the original Earl Abel's
restaurant. Founder Earl Abel, who played
organ at the Texas Theater, made a name for
himself as one of the country's top theater
organists in the 1920s. In 1940, Abel opened a
restaurant that would become a beloved San
Antonio institution, famous for fried chicken,
homemade pies, and retro décor. Although the
original building was torn down amidst much
controversy in 2006, the restaurant, and its
original neon signage, lives on at 1201 Austin
Highway.
9
8
7
6
17
16
15
5
14
13
4
3
12
11
2
10
1
El Tropicano
START
1
801 Broadway – Cavender Cadillac
Built in 1926 as a REO Motor Car Company
dealership. REO (pronounced as a single
word) was founded in 1904 by Ransom E. Olds,
who would later create Oldsmobile. The
company produced an early version of the
pickup truck, known as the Speedwagon. This
building has proven more enduring than the
rock band of the same name, although the
original windows have been altered.
2
900 Broadway – San Antonio
Overland Company
This building joined the ranks of several other
elegant car dealerships built along lower
Broadway in 1926. By 1930, however, it was
advertising itself as “San Antonio’s first used car
bargain basement,” inviting customers to “walk
down one flight of stairs and save.” The interior
of the building, now an antiques store, featured
ramps allowing cars to be driven up or down
from the ground floor.
3
1100 Broadway – Southern Music
The Sanderson Motor Company, an Essex and
Hudson auto dealer, opened in this location in
1926. However, the building became best
known as Southern Music, after the local music
company moved there in 1950. Southern not
only sold sheet music, but owned, published
and printed over 5,000 musical titles.
4
1130 Broadway – Mitchell Motors
Dodge Dealership LOST
O.R. Mitchell had this Art Moderne style
showroom built in 1949. To distinguish itself
from the many other dealership’s on lower
Broadway’s “automobile row,” the building
featured a distinctive curved façade facing
Broadway and a vertical pylon sign that read,
“DODGE.”
5
1508 Broadway – Pig Stand #29
Pig Stand restaurants started the nation’s drivein craze in Dallas in 1921, bringing innovations
such as Texas toast, onion rings, and carhops
to the Alamo city in 1926. This location opened
in 1931. A true survivor, it has become the last
operating Pig Stand restaurant in the state.
6
2201 Broadway – ButterKrust
Bakery
Richter’s ButterKrust Bakery building was built
in 1941 and expanded in 1948. Several
generations of San Antonians have fond
memories of visiting the plant as school children
to watch bread being baked until production
ceased in 1997. C.H. Guenther & Sons, Inc.,
which operates the Pioneer Flour Mill,
purchased the building in 2010 with plans to
renovate it as corporate headquarters with
additional office space for lease.
7
2218 Broadway – Kentucky Fried
Chicken
The first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise in
San Antonio opened further north on Broadway
in 1959 and was run by Earl Abel. This
restaurant, which was one of at least seven in
San Antonio at the time, was built c. 1973. Its
boxy design with a steeply peaked roof, cupola,
and weather vane matched an image from a
Flexi-Site Building catalog for 1970s KFC
franchise designs. At the time, the roof would
have been painted with alternating red and
white stripes, like a circus tent.
8
2222 N. Alamo at Broadway –
Playland Park LOST
Site of the amusement park Jimmy Johnson
opened in 1942 to entertain families and
soldiers stationed at Fort Sam Houston during
World War II. The park took up 15 acres and
included a 2,200 foot wooden roller coaster
known as “The Rocket,” as well as a vintage
1917 carousel, among its forty rides and
attractions. The park’s popularity kept it
operating until 1980.
9 2602 Broadway – Handy Andy
Grocery Store
This store, built by local architects Adams and
Adams in a “modernized Spanish” style, opened
in 1940. At 10,000 square feet, this Handy
Andy boasted the largest area of any grocery
store in San Antonio. It also featured the “new
fluorescent tube lighting, which is becoming so
universally popular.”
10

3006 Broadway – Jack in the Box
One of the first five Jack in the Box restaurants
opened in San Antonio, c. 1970. Jack in the
Box drive-through restaurants first came to
Texas in 1963, although the franchise didn’t
make it to San Antonio until 1969. Newspaper
ads from the 1970s included a diagram showing
customers how to use the drive through lane to
place and pick up their orders.
11

3015 Broadway – Kiddie Park
Kiddie Park has been touted as the nation’s
oldest public park for children under twelve and
is definitely one of the few surviving parks of its
kind that opened before WWII. Dating back to
1925, the amusement park still features many
of the original rides made by John Sterling
“Pops” Fears at the San Antonio Roller Works,
minus the roller coaster known as the “Little
Dipper.” New owners rescued the park from
decline in 2010.
12

3101 Broadway – Ranch Motel
Architect Phil Shoop designed this twentyseven unit, U-shaped motor court, which was
built in 1948 for Frank Daniels. Each Spanishtiled unit featured air conditioning, steam heat,
and could be radio-controlled from the main
office. It is one of the few local motor courts
from this era still operating as a motel.
13 3303 Broadway – Intercontinental

Motors
Local architect O’Neil Ford and his associate,
Howard Wong, designed this former auto
showroom in 1963. Ford’s demolition of the
exotic Spanish and Moorish-influenced home of
Mexican exile and surgeon Dr. Aureliano
Urrutia, which originally occupied the site,
proved controversial at the time. Ford did
manage to save many of the site’s large trees
and skillfully situated the glass frame building
among them so that they created a frame within
which cars were displayed.
14

3617 Broadway – Park Motel
Believed to be San Antonio's first motor court,
the Park Motel had forty-two rooms, each with
its own bathroom and carport, when built in
1931. The location proved popular with tourists
who couldn't get a motel room downtown during
HemisFair in 1968.
15

4108 Broadway – Jim's
16

4200 Broadway – Cheesy Jane's
Jim’s #6 at this location replaced an earlier El
Charro Restaurant in 1971. The popular
regional coffee shop was founded by Jim
Hasslocher, whose first venture in food service
was a watermelon stand in front of
Brackenridge Park in 1947.
Built c. 1958 as a Humble Oil service station
first operated by Floyd Baker. Humble was the
largest seller of gasoline in Texas at the time
and the first gasoline company to offer plastic
credit cards to its customers. Cheesy Janes’
burger and malt shop opened here in 2000,
using the 1950s era of the station as its theme.
17 4210 Broadway – Earl Abels’s

LOST
This was the site of the original Earl Abel's
restaurant. Founder Earl Abel, who played
organ at the Texas Theater, made a name for
himself as one of the country's top theater
organists in the 1920s. In 1940, Abel opened a
restaurant that would become a beloved San
Antonio institution, famous for fried chicken,
homemade pies, and retro décor. Although the
original building was torn down amidst much
controversy in 2006, the restaurant, and its
original neon signage, lives on at 1201 Austin
Highway.
Make U-turn, follow route back to Hildebrand and
Broadway. Turn right on Hildebrand, continue over
281 until McCullough (see inset).
25
24
23
22
21
26
20
Hit the Road – Self Guided Driving Tour
San Antonio’s Commercial Corridors
18
19
Prior to the 1930’s, the majority of main roads leading out of downtown San Antonio were lined with a
mix of residential and commercial buildings. That all changed in 1938, when city council approved the
zoning of all those arterial streets as wholly commercial corridors. Development quickly spread along
Castroville Road, Fredericksburg Road, Laredo Highway and San Pedro Avenue, among many others.
Broadway and the Austin Highway
18

Broadway and Patterson Avenue –
Bus Shelter
Charles Baumberger, the founder of the Alamo
Portland Cement Company, originally
commissioned this trabajo rustico structure as a
streetcar stop for the city of Alamo Heights in
the 1920s. Craftsman Dionicio Rodriguez
created the palapa-style shelter out of concrete
sculpted to look like tree trunks supporting a
thatched roof. The structure, which now
functions as a bus shelter, was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
19

4940 Broadway – Broadway
Theater
When this dramatic Art Moderne theater
opened in 1939, it featured the latest in
streamlined design that characterized the
Intestate suburban theater chain. In addition to
modern architecture and bold neon, the theater
boasted a 75-ton air conditioning system to
attract patrons and keep them cool. The
theater continued to operate through 1981.
20

5146– 5150 Broadway – Stewart
Center
This shopping center was built c. 1940 and
originally housed a Winn’s Five and Ten (now
Gabriel’s Liquor), a post office (now Lion &
Rose Pub), and Patt’s Drug Store (now UPS).
H.C. “Pat” Patterson opened his pharmacy at
5150 Broadway in1941. The pharmacy featured
a soda fountain, which initially offered carhop
service. Patt’s became a neighborhood
institution, operating out of the Stewart Center
until 2000, when it moved to a new Broadway
location.
21 5424 Broadway – Pegasus Sign

Dallas-based Magnolia Oil (now Mobil) hired the
local architectural firm of Adams and Adams to
design this Spanish eclectic gas station. This
neon-lit, flying red horse first soared over the
service station at the corner of Broadway and
Austin Highway in 1934. When Mobil Oil sold
the station in 1985, the Conservation Society
worked successfully with the oil company and
the new owner to secure the future of the
distinctive Pegasus sign. The 1986 agreement
reached with Mobil Corporation represented the
first of its kind because it allowed the
company’s trademark to be on permanent loan
to a private entity: the Society's Foundation.
22

416 Austin Highway – Spacetone
Music
A more recent roadside building, it started out
as Jif-e-Mart #677 in 1973. This unique canopy
structure has gone through numerous uses and
name changes ever since. By 1976 it had
become Green Things Nursery, followed by a
liquor store, and then Five Broads Off
Broadway antique store.
23

1032 Austin Highway – Steele
Motel LOST
In 1937, O. V. Steele purchased the land to
build a motor court on the lucrative Austin
Highway. The twenty-one unit Steele Motel
featured stucco buildings, as stipulated by the
deed restrictions, and a pool. Although Steele
sold the property in 1941, the motel retained his
name. Until 1951, this property lay outside the
San Antonio city limits.
24

1150 Austin Highway – Bun-NBarrel
This roadside drive-in, topped by a one-ton,
concrete barrel sign, opened in 1950 and
became known for its BBQ. President Lyndon
Baines Johnson supposedly even sent the
secret service over to pick up an order for him,
whenever he visited San Antonio. Until the
1970s, customers received their root beer in
chilled glass mugs.
25

1201 Austin Highway – Earl Abel's
Sign
The neon signage from the original Earl Abel's
restaurant on the corner of Broadway and
Hildebrand was salvaged and moved in 2006,
prior to the original building's demolition. Fourfoot red letters spell out “Earl Abel's,” while
“Coffee Shop” and “Restaurant” appear in blue.
The seventeen-foot, kidney-shaped marquee
still proclaims, “This is Earl Abel's Restaurant,”
with a yellow arrow pointing the way.
26

Broadway, within the city limits of San Antonio, and Austin Highway, historically outside the city limits
to the north, functioned as the main auto route between San Antonio and Austin in the years before the
Interstate Highway System. These two roads not only served many of the day-to-day needs of local San
Antonians, but also those of travelers and tourists to the Alamo City. The area just north of downtown
became known as “Automobile Row,” with numerous auto showrooms, while motor courts and early
motels sprung up along Austin Highway. In between, the former streetcar suburb of Alamo Heights
developed with the slightly different feel of a small town main street, complete with a movie theater and
small-scale shopping centers.
3902 McCullough – Olmos
Bharmacy
L.D. Gilmore opened Gilmore's Pharmacy in
this building in 1938. The pharmacy, which also
featured a soda fountain, became a popular
place to meet over a milkshake. The name
changed to “Olmos Pharmacy” in 1950, but the
lettering on the clock above the entrance
proclaimed, “Olomos.” To the rear, in 1948 a
HEB grocery store was constructed, complete
with pylon sign, a relatively new feature
introduced to help attract the attention of a
society speeding by in their automobiles.
Many thanks to the generous support of our sponsors: Charlott’s Antiques, City of San Antonio District 1 Councilmember Diego Bernal, City of
San Antonio Office of Cultural Affairs, City of San Antonio Office of Historic Preservation, Downtown Alliance San Antonio, El Tropicano
Riverwalk Hotel, Grafxcowgirl Design, Jim’s Restaurants, Magic Lantern Castle Museum, MidTexMod, The NRP Group, Old Spanish Trail
Centennial Celebration, Olmos Bharmacy, San Antonio College, Texas Historical Commission, Trinity University.