Memories of Early San Antonio 1950's 70's (Sherman, Alamo: apartment, hotel)

[livedonculebra]

Hi, I used to know George Lee Mabe as a kid and used to go to his house which is now the convent. What's he doing these days? Thanks, Nancy Smith, Dallas

[SnappyBob]

Wow it's funny that this post should reappear. This is the same post that popped up on the Goggle search that brought me to the City Data Forums and I've been hooked every since. I work across the street from Alamo Downs at Southwest Research and can remember when the grandstand bleachers were still up. The race track was over grown with weeds. I was driving back to work one day after lunch and cutting through Alamo Downs business park and wondering when the Alamo Downs Racetrack hayday was and did a Goggle on Alamo Downs when I got back to work. I wound up here on this very thread. Never did turn up much more on Alamo Downs though.

[spaceage007]

Wish you had taken a pic of that track SnappyB, Id love to see what the area looked like. I also did some searching on Alamo Downs.....and nothing. I did find a old pic of a horse racing there, but it is a very close up B/W pic. You cannot tell it is at AD, it could have came from anywhere.....not worth posting.

[spaceage007]

Ok...I never did a Google search check this out.

MySA.com: Paula Allen (broken link)

[Penann]

Baby Boomer,

Do you remember the Empire Theater? I am trying to find out what is the name of the hardware store on Houston street across from the Empire Theater. I have a picture of a street scene that shows the Empire Theater in the background and am trying to find out about the hardware store sign in the background.

[spaceage007]

Baby Boom

Found some old pics of the Alamo Downs track.

Enjoy
Space

[GWhopper]

I haven't been there in awhile, but if you go to the club level at Retama Park, make a left when you come off the escalators and walk passed the betting windows, you will see a little bar facing those betting windows. Make a left at the bar and head toward the back of the building, away from the track itself. Tucked into the corner is small Horse Racing musuem celebrating Horse Racing's history in Texas. If I remember correctly, there was a lot of stuff there from Bandera Downs. Picures, racing forms, even some souvenirs.

[huckster]

Hello From Dearborn Heights, a suburb of Detroit.
I lived quite a number of years there in the Holmes high area, before the mall was put up, when the old horse track was still there and Ingram Park Mall used to be an old gravel pit......there since the 1800's. There was nothing out past 410 at Ingram or Culebra or Bandera. I got out of Holmes high in 1970 and worked at the Gravel pit where the mall now is for a yearas a heavy equipment operator. The building was on the pit property,however I have no idea what it was used for. The school was an old Catholic elementary school. Devils. Den? There are a lot of devils dens out there. Kids always name these wooded areas this name. My kids had a devils den of their own out near FM 471 and 1604, back in the eighties. The other one I know of is at the low water crossing on Ingram past the mall. The Horse track was torn down, yes. I am now living in Michigan and hate it here due to the inclement weather, three years to go til' pension! Then back I come to S.A. the best place on earth.Palm trees and warm weather
--no snow ro the shoveling of it, no cabin fever, no rusty cars, no pollution,
and no traffic jams, yes, your traffic is nothing there.
Hill country, padre Island, here I come. 2011

Originally Posted by spaceage007

The Gone but not forgotten page is great. Ive been hooked on it since I found it, I was trying to find out what drive-in move screen I was seeing off HW90. There is also a Early San Antonio history post that is good and growing. There you can find some old maps of SA. Boomer it seem like you spent a lot of time on the early NW side of town. I had asked in the early SA history post if anyone had old pic of the NW side or just good stories. I was born in 73 and have lived on the NW side most of my life. We moved from the John Jay Pinn Rd area to Heritage NW in 78 (I think). So what was it like out here? How was the ingram mall area? There is a business park behind Holmes High School called Alamo Downs, a friend of mine said it use to be a horse racing track....do you know if it is true? Theres some old structure behind Ingram Mall in the area called Devil's Den....any idea of what that might have been or what the area was used for? At the corner of Culebra and Ingram there use to be a private school there when I was very young, do you remember that school? The area has been vacant for years with very very little of it remaming, but now a type of plaza is being built there. Well chime in if you can or anybody for that matter.

[huckster]

Ingram Park was a huge hole in the ground, people huled gravel out there for years,
since the nineteenth century when it was first taken from leon creek, back in the sixties and seventies they were blasting for it with dynamite, then it was limestone, and of poor quality, the company was Western Matls. Inc.
The race track is gone. The monastery or nunery is up near the hilltop on culebra
short of Oak Hill Rd if your are eaastbound. The little school was an elementary school
for kids on culebra and ingram. Back then it was not culebra but Potranco, Ingram veered sharp left at the low water crossing and became potranco.

[huckster]

[quote=huckster;2588314]Ingram Park was a huge hole in the ground, people hauled gravel out there for years,by wagon
since the nineteenth century when it was first taken from leon creek--- back in the sixties and seventies they were blasting for it with dynamite, then it was limestone not river gravel and of poor quality, the company was Western Matls. Inc.
The race track is gone. The monastery or nunery is up near the hilltop on culebra
short of Oak Hill Rd if your are eaastbound, on the left. The little school was an elementary school
for kids on culebra and ingram. Back then it was not culebra but Potranco, Ingram veered sharp left at the low water crossing and became potranco.[/Q
It used to be beautiful out there stilll hill country, but the locals used the low water crossing there on Ingram for a dump.
There is a stage coach relay station on the grounds of Southwest Research Inst. But don't trespass to find it, worked there as a grader
operator building roads for a contractor in the eighties.
Anything else? Let me know, also the film Sugarland express had a scene filmed
at the northside stadium, check it out, other scenes were filmed on Loop 13.