La Villita, San Antonio - Tucson Arizona

LA VILLITA: The Little Village of Downtown San Antonio #HISTORY

Historical Context

Beautifully preserved in its original glory from its formation in 1722, La Villita is the single square block of a historic neighborhood that is now known as an arts and entrepreneurship hub in downtown San Antonio. The district was erected on the southern bank of the San Antonio River during the establishment of the South of Mission San Antonio De Valero, which would later come to be known as The Alamo. By 1809, the subsequent construction of the Presidio San Antonio de Bejar, Villa de San Fernando, and the four missions that make up the modern day San Antonio Missions National Historical Park in San Antonio; Mission Concepcion, Mission San Jose, Mission San Juan Capistrano, Mission Espada, was completed, and the town of San Antonio was forged. Having retained its architectural integrity and its claim as a cultural center in the state of Texas, the “Artisan Village”, La Villita boasts its integration of local limestone, early Victorian, and adobe style frameworks that have earned it a place on the United States government’s National Register of Historic Places. In homage to the history of the colonialism that developed the neighborhood, the houses and streets of La Villita carry the monikers of their settlers: Cos House, Juarez Plaza, Bolivar Hall, Canada House, Guadalupe Street, and McAllister Corner.

Map, La Villita, San Antonio, Texas. Image available on the Internet and included in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.

The first residents of the La Villita area were the families of the soldiers that were stationed at San Antonio de Bexar Presidio, later housing the refugees from East Texas. 200 years later, it would serve as the Red Cross Center of San Antonio in its military aid during the second World War. As such a vibrant thread in the tapestry of America’s history, La VIllita was rehabilitated in 1948 to embrace its new title as an ode to Spanish and the early Texas culture that shaped it, re-cultivating the appreciation for arts and recreation in the community’s city center. Festivals, fairs, and shops have adorned the cobblestone streets that harbor centuries of Old San Antonio’s memoirs. The war torn region that was constantly under the threat of attack in the 19th century from Indian raids and Mexican Invasion struggled to sustain a population of other 3,500 until the 1850's, the majority of them being Mexican, American, and German. It would be another 20 years before La Villita experienced economic prosperity at the hands of the newly settled citizens of lawyers, shoemakers, saloon keepers, doctors, telegraph operators, and stonecutters alike. The meager number of inhabitants skyrocketed and the number of renters and owners in the small town saw a rise to a substantial 20,500 by 1880.

Modern Day Importance

Photograph, La Villita entrance. Image courtesy of the Texas Historical Commission provided to The Portal to Texas History. Image available on the Internet and included in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.

With such an undeniably rich and saturated history, Old San Antonio was subjected to an onslaught of destruction and turmoil in the wake of World War II that had ravaged its resources as it operated as a medical hub and Red Cross Center. The road to the restoration of the Little Village was not easy, nor deemed essentially practical by the chief consulting architect for the project, O’Neil Ford. His first impression of the condition of the city was infamously recorded in a 1976 interview, as he concluded that the state of La Villita “was just like 1926, and it was the worst slum you ever saw”. Maury Maverick was the appointed Mayor of San Antonio at this time, and was unrelenting in his vision for the ransacked urban sector that he believed would one day “be a symbol and a monument to those simple people who had made possible the great city which had grown up around it”. So motivated to catalyze the unification of the multitude of immigrant-American cultures that resided in San Antonio since its erection, Maverick penned the La Villita Ordinance which was approved on the 12th of October, 1939, and dedicated the mission statement of the future rehabilitation to “the promotion of peace, friendship, and justice between the United States of America and all other nations in the Western Hemisphere”.

Today, the San Antonio RiverWalk is a standing tribute to the generous and diverse history of the region, a physical representation of cultural evolution. Texas is characterized by an unapologetic pride in its origin story, one that is painted by equally honorable artists . It is the existence of monuments such as La Villita that personify the silent resilience of a people that had fought to survive in an ever-changing environment. It is no surprise that to walk along the uneven and history heavy streets of the Village is to feel a surge of emotion in the implicit strength it took the town to survive. The shops and artisans who populate them are dedicated to upholding the standard of cultural authenticity that has categorized the community in its entirety. Inclusive and welcoming, the galleries and boutiques display works from local artists to famed artisans, breeding inspiration for both creators and viewers that spills over into the compounded avidity for culture felt in the city of San Antonio.