 NOT-SO-HIDDEN TREASURES
They're the small
museums all over town
By Jasmina Wellinghoff
Photography Courtesy of the Texas Air Museum,
Like every big city, San Antonio has
flagship museums that seem to be in the
news all the time — the Witte, the McNay,
the San Antonio Museum of Art and the
Institute of Texan Cultures, just to mention
the most obvious.
But the city is also host to smaller, lessknown
treasure troves that house everything
from art to airplanes. To help you
discover or re-discover these not-so-hidden
treasures, we have prepared the
guide below.
DOWNTOWN
A charming 19th-century residence in
the King William district houses the San
Antonio Art League Museum, which specializes
in Texas art (130 King William St.,
(210) 223-1140). With a sculpture garden
outside, a permanent collection that
began in 1912, and changing exhibits
spotlighting local and regional artists, this
is a place that has a lot to offer. This
month, SAALM features the best work of
college art students from the area. In
April, it’s the turn of the 78th annual Artists
Exhibition, expected to attract 60 to 100
Texas artists working in a variety of media.
Most artwork will be for sale.
There’s another place downtown you
should either discover or renew your
acquaintance with: the Spanish
Governor’s Palace (105 Military Plaza, (210)
224-0601), the only remaining example in
the state of an aristocratic early Spanish
house. Oddly, many San Antonians have
heard of it but have never actually visited.
It’s definitely worth your time,and the back
garden is a treasure in its own right.
Also downtown is Casa Navarro (228
S. Laredo St., (210) 226-4801), a more
modest but nevertheless historic residence
of Tejano patriot José Antonio
Navarro,who was one of the signatories
of the Texas Declaration of
Independence, in 1836. You can tour his
residence furnished with period
antiques, read his writings and get a
sense of what life was like for his household
in the first part of the 19th century.
To refresh your knowledge about
another aspect of Texas history, visit the
Texas Ranger Museum (318 E. Houston St.,
(210) 247-4000) housed inside another
local institution, the Buckhorn Saloon and
Museum. While the latter may be familiar
to you, the Ranger collection just moved
there last summer.
With 8,000 square feet of space, the
exhibit is divided into three parts, starting
with the Ranger Gallery that depicts
the formation of the Ranger Force in Stephen F.Austin’s time. In the next section, called Tales of the
Texas Ranger, specific law-enforcement events are showcased
(these will periodically change),while the last portion is
set up as Ranger Town, complete with old San Antonio storefronts
and a restored 1934 Ford that helps to re-create the
ambush of Bonnie and Clyde by ranger Frank Hamer.
And we are not through with downtown yet. You may have
visited the Southwest School of Art and Craft (300 Augusta St.,
(210) 224-1848) many times, but do you know that there is a
small museum on the premises? It documents the history of the
place itself since it was first built as a girls’ school in 1848.
FORT SAM HOUSTON
Apart from the fact that the fort itself is an architectural living
museum, this historic military enclave in the heart of San Antonio
also boasts two more traditional museums that are open to the
public: the Fort Sam Houston Museum (2250 Stanley Road, Suite
36; (210) 221-1886) and the U.S. Army Medical Department
Museum (2310 Stanley Road, Bldg. 1046; (210) 221-6358).
The former is packed with exhibitions relating to the history of
the Army post and the people who made history while stationed
or visiting there. The latter is dedicated to military medicine
and is full of interesting old equipment and a variety of
emergency and ambulatory vehicles. It will give you a sense of
how much medical procedures have changed over time. The
interior is under renovation now, but the outside exhibits are
intact.You can enter Fort Sam either through the Walters Street
or the Harry Wurzbach gates, and you must show a photo ID.
NORTHEAST
If you like trains — and lots of people do — you’ll be in heaven
at the Texas Transportation Museum (11731 Wetmore Road, (210)
490-3554), where trains are not only on display, you can actually
ride one, too.This is a great place to bring kids to see railroad passenger
cars, steam locomotives,
old fire trucks and other
vehicles they have so far probably
seen only in old movies.
The museum complex is run
entirely by volunteers with a
passion for trains.
NORTH CENTRAL
Two little-known but educational
and moving small museums
are located in North
Central San Antonio only a
few miles apart from each
other. The World War II
Memorial Museum (11838
Wurzbach Road, (210) 408-
0116, ext. 6) is lovingly dedicated
to the “greatest generation”
by founder Steven Stoli,
who also owns the Steven Stoli
Playhouse next door.
With more than 3,000 items
in the collection, the exhibit is divided into two parts — the Home
Front and Theaters of War.Uniforms,personal items of all kinds,period
newspapers,war posters, photos and telegrams and even vintage
furniture are on display. There is also a 600-volume library.
Only a few miles away,a different kind of World War II memorial
can be found inside the Jewish Community Center (12500
N.W. Military Highway, (210) 302-6807). Called simply the
Holocaust Memorial, this one-room museum documents and
explains the Nazis’“final solution” perpetrated on Jews and others
deemed inferior by the Hitler regime. Jewish religious items
are also included in the exhibit, including a huge Torah scroll
hand-written in 1830.
Like the World War II museum above, this one, too, is watched
over by a caring and knowledgeable supervisor, director
Maxine Cohen.
ST. MARY’S UNIVERSITY
I’ll bet you had no idea that a small but well-stocked Earth
Sciences Museum exists in the Garni Science Hall on the campus
of St. Mary’s University (1 Camino Santa Maria, (210) 436-3235). Cases display collections of gorgeous rocks and minerals,
ores, fossils, corals and 3D molecular models of certain crystals.
In addition, the geology of the area is explained, and there are
pictures and 3D replicas of dinosaur footprints discovered in
Texas in 1941. Professor David Fitzgerald,who oversees the museum,
also pointed out the 300-specimen Wayne Gordon Trilobite
Collection, which contains unique fossil examples of these
Paleozoic-Era critters.
Talk about fun and educational!
 SOUTH SIDE
Like trains, airplanes fascinate us. The Texas Air Museum,
Stinson Chapter (Stinson Field, 1234 99th Street, (210) 977-9885) is
a good place to indulge your fascination with and curiosity about flying machines. Dating back to
1915, Stinson Field was San Antonio’s first
municipal airport, and it continues to
function as a “reliever” airfield to this day.
Charles Lindbergh flew out of Stinson
while he was stationed at Brooks Field.
The airport was named after the flying
Stinson family, whose members, most
notably Katherine Stinson, were famous
aviation pioneers.
In the museum, you can see a replica
of Katherine’s Bleriot monoplane and
learn about the entire Stinson bunch.
But there are other aircraft, of course,
both from the early days of aviation
and from World War II, including a rare
German Focke-Wulf 190. Aircraft simulators,
flight suits, weapons, a jeep from
the Vietnam War and even an exhibit
devoted to Pancho Villa’s time are all
part of the displays.
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