November 10 in San Antonio history…

1891
The entire west block of Military Plaza, including the Fashion Theater , is consumed by fire.

1954
Ruth Brown (“Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean”) and Charles Brown (“Merry Christmas, Baby”) perform at the [Carver] Library Auditorium.

1994
Actress Ann B. Davis signs copies of her cookbook, “Alice’s Brady Bunch Cookbook” at the Twig bookstore.

October 2 in San Antonio history…

1954
Nat “King” Cole and his Orchestra play a concert in Memorial Auditorium.

1980
Police raid a northside residence suspected of being a brothel, arresting two 23-year old Houston women under prostitution charges and confiscating a “trick list” of customers.  Many of these are suspected to be local governmental officials.

1984
Burger King buys all 20 local Whopper-Burger locations from Barbara Bates, widow of founder Frank Bates, for an undisclosed purchase price.  This ends an 11-year period where Burger King had agreed to not sell burgers in a three-county area around San Antonio.

September 17 in San Antonio history…

1939
Max Reiter is named conductor by the San Antonio Symphony Society, which will begin its first season with a performance in November.

1942
The new airport north of the city is officially designated the San Antonio Airport by City Council.

1954
The Los Angeles Rams play an exhibition game against the Philadelphia Eagles in Alamo Stadium. The Eagles win, 24-21.

September 3 in San Antonio history…

1926
Municipal Auditorium is dedicated as a memorial to the city’s WWI dead.

1954
Every telephone number in San Antonio will be changed at midnight tonight as special crews switch 127,000 lines to the new metropolitan numbering plan that requires dialing two letters and five digits (right).

2011
The UTSA Roadrunners play their first football game in front of 56,743 fans in the Alamodome.  They win, 31-3, over Northeastern (OK) State.

June 30 in San Antonio history…

San Antonio Express newspaper, 30 June 1954, p. 9A

1954
Color television arrived in San Antonio today but it will be some time before the average person will be able to afford and enjoy it in his home.  The first color TV programs were broadcast by WOAI – the “Today” show from 6 to 8 a.m. and “Home” from 9 to 10 a.m.  For the present time, no color programs in color will originate locally.  The programs were available for viewing in color at the Wolff & Marx department store on a handmade television with a 14-inch screen.

1965
A San Antonio Light article reports on the new computer handling patient records at Brooke General Hospital.  The IBM 1440 computer required the construction of a special room and uses disk packs that store 3 million characters [3 Megabytes], or 4,000 patient records.  The system cost “less than $25,000.””

1994
The Eagles, who Don Henley once claimed would get back together “when hell freezes over,” bring their “Hell Freezes Over Tour” to a packed Alamodome crowd.  Melissa Etheridge opens the concert.  Almost 10 minutes into Etheridge’s set, KSMG-FM radio personality Sonny Melendrez leeaves the lofty press box, walks across the cavernous Alamodome floor to the opposite side and then all the way up into the rafters section to deliver two front row tickets to two unsuspecting concertgoers, Yolanda Trevino and Sendi Forley, who are obviously caught by surprise.

June 20 in San Antonio history…

1930
Randolph Field is dedicated in front of 20,000 San Antonians and visitors.  Brig. Gen. Frank P. Lahm, commander of the Air Corps Training Center, called it “the best site I have ever seen for a flying field.”  Texas Governor Dan Moody was forced to scramble from his car when it caught fire leaving the event but the auto was quickly extinguished by nearby firemen.

1954
San Antonio chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People today voted unanimously to instruct its legal redress committee to take immediate steps to have the city’s segregated swimming pool ordinance declared unconstitutional.

1966
Sister Angela Clare Moran replaces Sister Mary Vincent as administrator of Santa Rosa Hospital.

June 19 in San Antonio history…

1885
The first graduates of San Antonio High School are given their diplomas.  They are: Charles Arnold, Clara Carrico, Leila Emrie, Anna Graves, Lillite Gill, Ada Hockett, William Knox, Hannah Morris, Virginia Newton, Hart Poor, Seymour Thomas and Nannie Weir.

1917 
Subscriptions for the purchase of the ancient governor’s palace, a relic of the royal government of Spain, which stands on Military Plaza and which is in danger of being torn down, are beginning to be received by the committee working for its preservation, Miss Adina De Zavala, chairman. A regular plan of campaign has not been decided upon, but a meeting of the executive and advisory
committees will be held at some time next week, the time and place to be announced later. This building is one of the oldest structures in San Antonio and was erected by the Spanish government as the administrative palace when Texas was a province of Spain. In spite of disfiguring signs and years of neglect and abuse, the building has a commanding appearance and the ancient seal of Spain still remains over the door.

1954
After six Negro boys go swimming in Woodlawn Pool, the San Antonio City Council votes to ban people of color from city swimming pools, making law of a de facto segregation that had existed for 90-plus years.  To add insult to such a despicable action, the law takes effect on “Juneteenth,” the 89th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Texas.  This law would be repealed two years later, on March 16, 1956.

May 31 in San Antonio history…

1949
The Board of Trustees of the Public Library passes the motion that “The San Antonio Public Library shall be open to all people equally, irrespective of race or creed.”

San Antonio Light advertisement

1954
Frank Huntress, publisher of the San Antonio Express newspaper, announces that the Express Publishing Company has applied to the Federal Communications Commission to purchase KGBS television station channel 5.  (The sale would be completed in November 1954 and the call letters would be changed to KENS for Express-News Station.)

1968
Randy’s Rodeo holds its grand opening featuring Johnny Bush.  Legendary acts such as Rush, U2 and the Sex Pistols would all play their first San Antonio gigs at Randy’s.

May 4 in San Antonio history…

1901
President McKinley is the first President to visit to San Antonio.  He delivers a speech in front of the Alamo.

1954
Little Bobby Ledger bravely steps to the head of the line at 9 a.m. Tuesday, bares his arm, grits his teeth and becomes the first San Antonian inoculated with Salk polio vaccine.

1979
Blood samples taken from Battle of Flowers sniper Ira Attebury have turned up “quite a lot” of Angel Dust, or PCP, according to Bexar County medical examiner Dr. Ruben Santos.

March 11 in San Antonio history…

1811
The Viceroy declares that the Villa San Fernando, the Presidio San Antonio, and the grounds of the old Mission de Valero are all to be incorporated together under the name San Antonio de Bexar.

1939
The groundbreaking for the Alamo Cenotaph, designed by sculptor Pompeo Coppini, is held today.

1954
The mercury reaches 91 degrees today, an all-time high temperature for the date.