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BENDELE-DISSERTATION-2015.Pdf Copyright by Marvin Charles Bendele, Jr. 2015 The Dissertation Committee for Marvin Charles Bendele, Jr. Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Food, Space, and Mobility: The Railroad, Chili Stands, and Chophouses in San Antonio and El Paso, 1870-1905 Committee: Steven D. Hoelscher, Supervisor Elizabeth Engelhardt, Co-Supervisor Janet M. Davis Mark C. Smith Eric Tang Food, Space, and Mobility: The Railroad, Chili Stands, and Chophouses in San Antonio and El Paso, 1870-1905 by Marvin Charles Bendele, Jr., B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August, 2015 Acknowledgements While completing a dissertation is in many ways a solitary journey, I would not have made it through without the guidance, encouragement, support and patience from a mentors, friends, and family. First among this group of supporters are the members of my dissertation committee. Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt has been a friend and mentor throughout most of my long career as a graduate student. She has advised me within the department as well as guide and support me in my professional career that interrupted this dissertation before it got started. Steven Hoelscher has helped guide the last few months of this dissertation through the defense, revisions, and submission, offering insightful critique at every turn. Janet Davis, Mark Smith, and Eric Tang offered valuable criticism as readers and have all served as sounding boards at one time or another throughout my time in the American Studies program. Throughout my graduate studies, my family and friends in Texas and Mississippi have offered continued encouragement, threats, and love as I worked through this process. Some have wondered if they will ever see me again, others were likely happy for the break. I look forward to seeing them all on a more regular basis in the years to come. No one has endured as much of this process with me as my wife, Jessica Mitchell, and my two strong, brave, patient daughters, Larkin and Logan. My daughters have only known a daddy who had to work late on chapter revisions or spend chunks of weekends with research. I cannot wait to spend those hours with them instead. Jessica has more patience than anyone I have known. This process has lasted nearly as long as we have iv known each other, and I so look forward to shifting together into a new phase of our lives. v Food, Space, and Mobility: The Railroad, Chili Stands, and Chophouses in San Antonio and El Paso, 1870-1905 Marvin Charles Bendele, Jr., Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2015 Supervisor: Steven Hoelscher Co-Supervisor: Elizabeth Engelhardt As the railroad changed the urban landscape of Texas cities after the Civil War, it offered new economic opportunities for restaurateurs in both public and private spaces. This dissertation illustrates the ways chili stands owners working in San Antonio plazas and Chinese restaurateurs working in El Paso chophouses at the end of the nineteenth century negotiated the use of space in the growing cities. While chili-stand owners subverted the prevailing narrative definition of the restaurant by performing with success another version outside of that narrative, the Chinese chophouses negotiated stories about their uncleanliness and vice by adopting some of those same prevailing, dominant ideas and definitions regarding the American restaurant. These two stories offer both a glimpse into contests over food space at the end of the nineteenth century and complicate the history of the American restaurant industry as it has been told over the last century. The railroad is very much an actor in this story as its presence brought attention to the vi nightlife of the plazas and the downtown areas of each city as well as increased the real and imagined values of spaces throughout both cities, which only heightened the contests over those spaces. vii Table of Contents List of Figures ........................................................................................................ xi Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 Contested Food Space ...................................................................................11 Chapter Overview .........................................................................................21 Chapter One: The Railroad, Mobility, and Space ..................................................25 The Railroad as Metaphor .............................................................................28 Pre-Railroad Travel .......................................................................................32 Landscape Transformation on the Frontier ...................................................35 Boosters, Tourism, and the Railroad.............................................................43 Eating Along the Rails ..................................................................................48 Conclusion ....................................................................................................51 Chapter Two: Food Networks and Railroad Development in Texas .....................54 Wagon Freighting in Central and East Texas ...............................................55 Railroad Development in Texas....................................................................57 Landscape Transformation in Texas .............................................................71 viii Railroad Food Networks ...............................................................................77 Conclusion ....................................................................................................81 Chapter Three: The Plaza Chili Stands of San Antonio ........................................83 San Antonio before the Railroad...................................................................94 San Antonio Plazas .......................................................................................98 San Antonio after the Railroad ...................................................................110 Chili Stands in the Plazas ............................................................................113 Chili Stands as Restaurant ..........................................................................116 The Image of the Chili Queen .....................................................................131 Conclusion ..................................................................................................141 Chapter Four: El Paso Chinese Chophouses ........................................................144 Paso del Norte .............................................................................................155 Overland Route through Texas ...................................................................163 Chinese Immigration to the United States ..................................................167 American El Paso ........................................................................................174 The Chinese in Texas ..................................................................................179 The Chinese Community in El Paso ...........................................................183 ix El Paso Chinese Foodways .........................................................................203 Conclusion ..................................................................................................215 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................218 Bibliography ........................................................................................................229 Primary Sources ..........................................................................................229 Secondary Sources ......................................................................................234 x List of Figures Figure 1.1: Hay wagons, freighters, and chili stands on Military Plaza in 1883. ....2 Figure 1-2. El Paso. Automobile Blue Book 1920. .................................................6 Figure 2.1: Completed Texas railroad lines as of 1870. ........................................60 Figure 2.2: Completed Texas railroad lines as of 1880. ........................................63 Figure 2.3: Completed Texas railroad lines as of 1890. ........................................66 Figure 2.4: Heidenheimer Brothers Wholesale Grocers, Dealers in Liquor, Tobacco, and Cigars, and Direct Importers of Salt. .........................................80 Figure 3.1: The Fandango ......................................................................................83 Figure 3.2: Augustus Koch, Bird’s Eye View of the City of San Antonio Bexar County Texas, 1873. ......................................................................................99 Figure 3.3: Military Plaza. ...................................................................................124 Figure 3.4: Chili Stands in Military Plaza, ca. 1880s. .........................................125 Figure 3.5: Men at chili stand in Military Plaza, ca.1887-90. .............................126 Figure 3.6: "Old Ernst's" Restaurant in the Market House, about 1900. .............128 Figure 3.7: “Chili-con-carne stand at 6 a.m. Military Plaza, San Antonio, Texas.”133 Figure 3.8: Chili stands, Military
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