HemisFair ’68 and The Homes on Goliad Street
Part Three: The Hermann and Mary Schultze Home, 114 South Street
About this five-part series: During the early 1960’s, San Antonio was poised for urban renewal, which eventually brought a world’s fair and new municipal buildings to this economically-stalled South Texas city. When construction began for HemisFair ’68, only 22 of 300 historic homes were saved from the neighborhood once called Germantown. This series strives to help restore the sense of community enjoyed by the diverse residents who made their homes a short walk from the Alamo.
While the Schultze home may seem misplaced in a series about homes on Goliad Street, there is a reason for including it here. The home now resides on what used to be Goliad Street, but was constructed in the late 1870’s at 114 South Street in the area known as Germantown. To add to the confusion, the home was demolished and rebuilt before HemisFair ’68 and is now listed as 507 and 509 Hemisfair, addresses for the front-facing doors; one a second-floor yoga studio, while the other door opens into first floor meeting space.
Hermann and Mary Schultze were both natives of Prussia, born in 1835, and 1838 respectively. Hermann was born in Berlin (the capital of Prussia at the time) and arrived in Texas sometime in the 1850’s. By 1864, he established a hardware business, in addition to crafting metal building components and installing metal roofing. He was one of many German immigrants who arrived in Texas during this time.
The Schultze’s had seven children, beginning in 1860 when the couple was in their mid-twenties. Each of the children were born nearly three years apart and ranged in age from 20 to 3-years-old during the 1880 census: Hermann Jr., Louisa, Max, Ida, Annie, Mary, and Willie. This must have been an active Germantown household.
The Schultze family prospered in their chosen town of San Antonio. They owned a thriving hardware and dry goods store at 9 West Commerce near the bridge, and when they outgrew that location around 1890, they built the two-story, 7,250 square foot limestone-block hardware store and warehouse with second floor apartments surviving today at 113–115 Goliad Street (near South Alamo Street). The store’s entrance actually faces Goliad Street and features porches on three sides. Records tell us that Schultze chose the lumber from the Steves Lumber Yard, had the cast iron columns made at Alamo Iron Works, and created the ornate tin trimwork himself.
In the 1850’s the lot where the store and warehouse now stands was Captain Beck’s cow pen, where San Antonian’s came to get milk. It’s also interestng to note that the street is named for the town of Goliad, 100 miles southeast of San Antonio, because this was the cattle trail connecting Goliad to San Antonio.
Schultze built the original 1,740 square foot brick house in the late 1870’s on South Street, where it would soon be positioned in front of the Schultze Warehouse and Apartments on Goliad. The home featured cast iron columns and metal trim in a style that was no longer in fashion at the time, but these details showcased Schultze’s craft in working with metals and iron. The floor plan featured European styling, with two front doors as well as two rear doors and no interior stairwell for the second story; all first floor rooms opening into each other. It’s very possible there was an exterior staircase at the home’s rear. Fearful of fire, the home’s kitchen was detached from the house and included its own basement/cellar.
In 1905, Miss Louisa Schultze was living at 115 Goliad Street in the “Schultze Apartments” (above the store) while taking in boarders who rented furnished rooms. By 1909 or 1910, the family moved to 112 Goliad Street, and the home on South Street became a rental property. Louisa’s younger sister, Mrs. Ida S. Goldbeck, moved into the apartments in 1940. By 1955, it appears that the apartments and store were vacant.
In 1965, it was clear that the Schultze home on South Street was in the way of the new convention center. The San Antonio Conservation Society noted that only one other home in San Antonio included similar tin work (on Monumental Street), and recommended that the Schultze home be moved rather than demolished.
Despite efforts of both the Conservation Society and Senator Ralph Yarborough, the home on South Street was razed to make way for the convention center’s driveway. These saviors argued with city leaders that they needed more time to find a firm that could move the structure, and that the cost of moving it would be less than destroying and rebuilding it. But city leaders were intent on getting rid of this obstacle prior to the Bureau of International Exhibitions delegation visit (the group entrusted with granting a “world’s fair” designation). The home was demolished, but the original columns, cornices, and decorative tinwork were salvaged and used on the exterior of this new iteration of the Schultze home built of steel trusses and cinder block, faithfully reproducing the home’s original dimensions.
During the world’s fair, this former store and warehouse was used as the Humble Oil Pavilion’s travel showcase and 150-seat theater, providing current highway information and routes, as well as world’s fair themed art and crafts. During the fair, the Schultze home was call the Schultze Gift Shoppe, and must have provided easy access to fairgoers for souvenirs as they entered or exited the fair through Gate 1. Today, the store is leased to Hilton Hotels for conference and meeting space.
In January of 1965, the Schultze’s granddaughter, Elinor Wilkes, wrote to the Urban Renewal Agency, lending her voice to those trying to save the home on South Street. She also wrote to the Dallas newspaper, where a resident commented that our nation’s landmarks were disappearing with the help of the Urban Renewal Agency. In 1966, the home was designated as a Texas Historic Landmark, representing the cultural, economic, and social history of the state. Perhaps this designation is why the home was rebuilt and now stands near the family store, on the street formerly known as Goliad.
Conclusion
This series about the homes along Goliad Street grew out of my need to complete an applied project for a masters degree in Liberal Studies, and my passion for family history. My paternal grandparents immigrated from Yugoslavia through Ellis Island in 1902, and I’m heartbroken that I didn’t engage them in conversation about their life’s journey of immigration to the United States, or the successful lives they built here. I can only imagine that I was too young to take note, and when I did gather information about our family, it was from my aunt, the last surviving member of her large family of Serbian-speaking, Orthodox-worshiping immigrants from the old country.
Learning about the historic homes remaining in Hemisfair park has brought me closer to my adopted community of San Antonio, and for this I am forever grateful. I’m also thankful to be asked to serve on Hemisfair Conservancy’s Development Board. We are tasked with raising awareness about our “new” city park, and the beauty it brings to downtown San Antonio, for tourists and locals alike. Please join me in supporting Hemisfair Conservancy’s work to preserve these historic homes by donating to the Conservancy through this website: https://hemisfair.org/donate/
Twenty-nine percent of donations are used for historic preservation.
Copyright Notice: The unauthorized use of images from either the Hemisfair Conservancy, San Antonio Conservation Society Foundation, UTSA, or the author is prohibited without prior consent from these entities.
