Woolworth’s - 518 E. Houston Street In June of 1921, F. W. Woolworth Company opened a new 5, 10, and 15 cent store on the corner of E. Houston and Alamo Streets, where the Maverick Bank Building once stood. The $225,000 building had been designed by Adams and Adams.1 This local architectural firm went on to design other noteworthy structures, including Jefferson High School, the Hall of State for the Texas Centennial in Dallas, and the Alamo Cenotaph, featuring Pompeo Coppini’s sculptures.2 Woolworth’s, a popular national discounter, first came to San Antonio in 1912. As the “oldest Woolworth store in Texas,”3 it prospered enough to erect a new three-story building “on San Antonio’s most prominent corner.”4 The newspaper ad announcing Woolworth’s formal opening boasted that, “We have added a number of features to our service – but the one which you will appreciate most is our soda fountain and lunch counter.”5 This lunch counter, touted by the local manager as the largest in the city,6 later catapulted San Antonio into civil rights history. On March 16, 1960, Woolworth’s became one of six local stores that peacefully desegregated their lunch counters.7 No sit-in demonstrations were held, thanks to the cooperation of church leaders, store managers, and members of the NAACP, who orchestrated the policy change behind the scenes.8 The Express-News photographed history in the making at the Woolworth’s cafeteria on Alamo Plaza, where the store’s equal service policy helped San Antonio acquire the distinction of being “the first city in the South to receive publicity for the desegregation of its lunch counters.”9 Woolworth’s, by virtue of its size, location, and company prominence, played a key role in elevating San Antonio to the national stage of civil rights history as a positive example in race relations. Jackie Robinson, the African American baseball star who helped integrate the major leagues, declared the event a story that "should be told around the world.”10 The Woolworth Building became part of the Alamo Plaza National Register Historic District in 1977. Inclusion in the city’s local landmark district followed in 1978. The State of Texas purchased this building, along with the adjacent Palace Theater and Crockett Block, in December 2015. Two months
1 “Huge Woolworth Permit Is Issued,” San Antonio Evening News (San Antonio, TX), August 26, 1920.
2 Handbook of Texas Online, Christopher Long, "ADAMS, CARLETON W.," accessed September 10, 2018, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fad25.
3 “Oldest Woolworth Store in Texas.” Reflections, July 1992.
4 “F.W. Woolworth Co.” San Antonio Light (San Antonio, TX), June 2, 1921.
5 Ibid.
6 “Woolworth to Hold Formal Opening in New Store Friday,” San Antonio Light (San Antonio, TX), June 2, 1921.
7 “Lunch Counters Integrate Quietly.” San Antonio Express (San Antonio, TX), March 17, 1960.
8 Morland, Kenneth. “Special Report – Lunch-Counter Desegregation in Corpus Christi, Galveston, and San Antonio, Texas.” May 10, 1960.
9 Ibid.
10 “Both Races Accept Move by 5 Stores,” New York Times (New York, NY), March 20, 1960.
1 later, Preservation Texas added Woolworth’s to its 2016 Most Endangered Places list, reflecting the uncertainty of the building’s fate during the Alamo master planning process. The Alamo Master Plan approved by City Council in 2017 endorsed the reuse of the Woolworth Building, along with the Crockett Block and Palace Theater, as part of a planned Alamo Museum. During the interpretive planning of 2018, Mayor Ron Nirenberg, District 1 Councilman Roberto Treviño, City Manager Sheryl Sculley, and County Judge Nelson Wolff went on the record supporting preservation of the three historic buildings.11 However, the 2018 interpretive plan approved by the Alamo Citizen Advisory Committee contradicted the earlier master plan by keeping the option open for the demolition of the Palace and Woolworth Buildings. Too many sites with historic ties to the African-American experience have been lost or marginalized, marked only by a plaque, if at all. One hundred and twenty-four years after William Travis’ slave, Joe, survived his master at the Battle of the Alamo, African-Americans walked through the doors of the Woolworth’s on Alamo Plaza to be served as equals without incident. The continuum of history on Alamo Plaza - the “Cradle of Texas Liberty”- must be honored and preserved. Liberty was not won, once and for all, in 1836.
11 Nirenberg, Ron, et al., “Alamo Plaza must remain a public space.” San Antonio Express-News, July 22, 2018 and Huddleston, Scott, “San Antonio officials request changes to controversial Alamo plan.” San Antonio Express-News, July 1, 2018.
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