Gone But Not Forgotten in San Antonio! - Part I (Orange: reservation, newspapers)

[SATX56]

Originally Posted by Cibolo Rider

satx56: Thanks for the reply. It was probably late 50's early 60's when I went to the St. Marys Roller Rink. I think I'm right about the dress code for that period, but who knows. I might have just conjured that up. lol. The light thing might have been hokum but I believed it then. Checked the light every night then reported the status back to my parents. They were probably laughing up their sleeve.

You're welcome CR, the time I went to the skating rink was probably 1964 to 1968 or when it closed! I was gonna say, it's certainly possible they had a dress code earlier. I 'd really like to know the history of that place! The light thing I know nothing about!!

[GWhopper]

I went to the Hyatt Hill Country resort today for Thanksgiving and they had a cowboy there doing pistol and roping tricks. It brought back an old memory: Does anybody remember, back as least as the 1970s there used be an old man who used to do lasso tricks on the riverwalk? He was always stationed next to the Hilton Palacio Del Rio across from the Arneson River Theater. Anybody know the background of this guy? Was he employed by the hotel or just a street performer?

[Cibolo Rider]

Originally Posted by Dwangle

I alway's heard that the Transit Tower light was a weather forcast. I never seemed to get the same answer for the forecast. The most common answer was " It is saying that the weather is going to change". Safe bet in south texas!

Thanks Dwangle, This makes more sense than what I had heard.

[GWhopper]

Originally Posted by Dwangle

This is kind of way out there but when I was young, in the fifties, I remember a small open cockpit prop plane-maybe a Biplane- flying around with a loud speaker saying things like "Oswald Rabbit". Everyone would look up and watch it fly by but nobody had a clue about what it was doing. Does anyone else remember this?

I wasn't around in the 50's, so I am not sure if this is the same thing, but Oswald Rabbit was one of the very first cartoon characters produced by Walt Disney studios back in the 1920's. Someone other than Disney owned the rights to the character, but Disney was doing the animation for the cartoon and Universal studios was distributing it. Sometime at the end of that decade, there was a fight over budget and the guy who owned the rights took it over himself and used former Disney employees to make cartoons with the character. I have found conflicting stories as to who actually owned the character, some sources say Charles B. Mintz, others say Carl Laemmle yet another says Walter Lantz. Either way, Universal studios eventually owned the rights.

Coincidently, it was the loss of this character that convinced Disney to own the rights of the characters they animated, so Walt Disney very quickly came up the idea of Mickey Mouse himself.

The Oswald Rabbit character continued in animation until the early 1950's so this could be what you saw.

On a side note, we may be seeing Oswald Rabbit again. When Al Michaels left Disney-owned ABC Sports to go to NBC when they lost Monday Night Football, part of the negotiation with NBC, which I guess is owned by Universal Studios, was to get the rights to Oswald Rabbit. They succeeded and now Disney finally owns the rights to Oswald Rabbit. This was in 2006, I believe.

[GWhopper]

This past saturday, I was in the area and decided to take a walk through Ingram Mall. I haven't been there in years. I wanted to see what was left of the old days. I was expecting to see a dying mall, kind of like Crossroads now or Windsor and Central Park were when they shut down. To my surprise the place was thriving. It was packed with people. What's left of the old days? Other than the main anchors, the Walden's Books was still in the exact same place and looks much the same as it did in the 80's (I bought a book there, just to contribute something). The Hallmark shoppe, I think, was an original. There is the Piercing Pagoda, though they are no longer in that retro 70's hut under the escalator Spencer's gifts is still there in the same place. The little Ice Cream place with all the bare lightbulbs around the sign is still in the exact same place on the first floor, and I guess you can argue that the Babbage's is still there, albeit in a different location, since Babbage's changed their name to GameStop. Still a Chick-fil-a there (two actually, one in the food court and one in the parking lot) but I don't count that as original since the one I used to go to was by the Sear's. Fredrick's of Hollywood is still there, too. Sadly, no Chess King .

Now this is a little interesting, probably only to me: When I was 10 years old I broke the escalator in the Sears at Ingram Park. I was walking backwards on the escalator, going against the motion. I don't know if you know this, but those two lights that shine out of the side of the escalator at the top and bottom are sensors. If an object gets stuck between these sensors, the whole escalator shuts down. By walking against the motion and therefore staying in the same place, I shut down the escalator. My mom, who is generally very angry to begin with, was really, really pi$$ed at me for that. I thought it was very cool that I could break an entire escalator. When I was there this past Saturday, there was a kid, around 10 years old, doing the same thing on the same escalator that I broke in 1980. I thought about warning him, but figured he'd have better memories later if he just broke the damn thing again.

The B. Dalton's, my favorite bookstore there and what started this little trip down memory lane, is gone now. Most of its space has been taken over by the athletic store next door, and what little space is left was apparently some store called True Identity that is already out of business. All the cool wood facade has been ripped out.

Primo has challenged me to find out the name of the electronic's store downstairs on the Sear's wing that sold the big screens and always had JAWS playing on the main display. I am hunting that down now.

Rest in Peace, Pat McGee's and Ocean Pacific. I eagerly await the return of the Chess King!

[GWhopper]

In doing some research on Ingram Mall, I just found out that the theater that was there was built by the movie Studio United Artists. It was the third and final one built by that studio in San Antonio. I thought the theater in North Star Malls was a UA theater, but I guess I was wrong. it appears that Windsor and Southpark had the other 2 UA cinemas in San Antonio.

[GWhopper]

First off, a big warning for all of you San Antonio History buffs who are considering paying money for the NewspaperArchive.com site: I just found out all entries for San Antonio end in 1977. Since the late 70's early 80's is the time that most interests me (when I grew up here) this is extremly frustrating. I don't know if anything after 1977 is waiting to be transfered from the old micro-fiche format, or if there is another souce on the net that now houses the information. I have a friend who once worked at the Express-News and his role was digitizing the old micro-fiche to be put into a database, you can bet I am going to hit this guy up to see what the F is going on.

[GWhopper]

That being said, let me share with you something I found while thumbing through Place Names and killing myself to find some info in the original stores in Ingram Park Mall (which has no relevance to these findings): Have any of you dined at the Lodge in Castle Hills? The original residence was built by Chester and Helen Slimp ( I'll figure out who these people were, but later). Construction was started in the 1920's and completed in the 1930's. At the time, there wasn't much out here (Wurzbach Mansion and farms, Algo Differente, etc) and, though its hard to see today, it is built on a major hill that back then afforded a very nice view of Downtown San Antonio. Upon its completion in the 1930's, locals started referring to it as the "Castle on the Hill". From this, the area immediately South of it was informally referred to as Castle Hills. The title became formal in 1951, when "Castle Hills" incorporated itself so as not to be a part of the San Antonio Municipality.

[GWhopper]

How awesome is this;


YouTube - Hemisfair 1968 San Antonio

I have to give credit where credit is due, Lakewooder found this.

So much promise for San Antonio that never materialized....what a shame.

[GWhopper]

more video:


YouTube - Hemisfair 1968-1988