October 14 in San Antonio history…

1885
Ground is broken for the new San Antonio National Bank building on Commerce street.

1956
Elvis Presley with his band, Scotty Moore, Bill Black and D.J. Fontana,  plays two shows at the Bexar County Coliseum to thousands of swooning, screaming, mainly female, fans.  It was the third appearance for Elvis in San Antonio in 1956. (photo from Freeman Coliseum.)

1980
The Spurs kick off their season against their new division rival Kansas City Kings.  With the addition of the Dallas Mavericks to the NBA, the Spurs move from the Central Division of the Eastern Conference to the Midwest Division of the Western Conference.  The division also includes the Houston Rockets, Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets and Utah Jazz.

September 20 in San Antonio history…

1940
Alamo Stadium is completed and dedicated.

1956
A $50,000 remodeling will convert the Broadway Theater to the new curved wide-screen Todd-AO process. A spokesman for Interstate Theaters said the first Todd-AO production would be “Oklahoma!” on Oct. 26.  The Broadway will become the city’s only reserved seat house under the new set-up. There will be one show a night on weeknights at 8:30 and matinees on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. There will be three shows daily on Saturday, Sunday and ‘on holidays.  Admission will range from $1.25 to $2 with all seats reserved.

1995
The legendary B. B. King performs at Sunken Garden Theater.

August 17 in San Antonio history…

1928
The Uptown Theater at West Ashby and Fredericksburg Road holds its grand opening.  The new theater is owned and operated by the Victor Theater Company, which has been operating in San Antonio nearly a year.  One of the features of the new theater is the offering of a family ticket, which will admit a whole family at nominal cost.

1955
More than 30 youngsters who share Davy Crockett’s August 17 birthday date gathered to whoop it up at a Chamber of Commerce-sponsored party in Brackenridge Park today.  Sporting coonskin caps and Davy Crockett t-shirts, they gathered around TV star Johnny Lane who led them in singing “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” and “Home on the Range.”

1956
The Edwards Aquifer reaches its lowest recorded level at 612.5 feet.

August 4 in San Antonio history…

1891
The City Council passes the “Bawdy House Ordinance,” legalizing and licensing houses of prostitution.

1960
Ground is broken on the new outer loop north of the city (Loop 1604).

1982
FCC Administrative Law Judge Joseph Stirmer awards Alamo Broadcasting Co. permission to build a new television station to broadcast on UHF Channel 29.

1983
An overnight two-alarm blaze suspected to have been caused by an arsonist, causes $10,000 damage to this historic Yturri house located at 327 S. Presa.  The house dates from 1817. 

May 20 in San Antonio history…

1956
One of the Army’s most powerful weapons – the 280mm “atomic gun” will be on public display at Randolph Air Force Base today during the Armed Forces Week Open House.  A crew from Ft. Sill, Oklahoma will mount the 85-ton cannon and ready it for firing.  This part of the exhibit is being planned by Post Ordinance at Fort Sam Houston.

San Antonio Express-News file photo

1958
A San Antonio corporation has been formed to probe possibilities of establishing a family park like Disneyland here, the chamber of commerce announced today.

1995
The San Antonio Central Library at 600 Soledad holds its grand opening.

April 6 in San Antonio history…

1956
This ad (right) appeared in the San Antonio Register, the local African-American newspaper, requesting financial donations for the Birmingham bus boycott.

1965
Rev. C. H. James, pastor of Second Baptist Church, wins election as the city’s first black city councilman.

1968
HemisFair ’68 opens to the public.

April 5 in San Antonio history…

1942
The Baylor University Golden Wave Band presents an Easter Sunday concert in the Thomas Jefferson High School auditorium.

1956
The Bexar County [Freeman] Coliseum was desegregated on the order of the board of managers. An announcement declared that there would be no discrimination “based on race, color or creed of persons lawfully on the Coliseum premises.”

1977
NBA Commissioner Larry O’Brien is the featured speaker at the Spurs Tip-Off Club meeting in the Jersey Lilly room at the Pearl Brewery.  This is O’Brien’s first appearance in San Antonio since the Spurs entered the NBA last year.

March 22 in San Antonio history…

1924
The San Antonio Conservation Society is organized to save the old Market House and the San Antonio River.

1956
In advance of a May 12 Federal Court hearing, the City Council unanimously repeals the June 19, 1954 ordinance (No. 20307) prohibiting people of color from city swimming pools and other city-owned facilities.

1968
Southwestern Bell Telephone announces a new operating area in Texas – its third – with headquarters to be located in San Antonio.  The effective date of the new area organization will be April 1, but it will be October 1 before it is fully operational.

March 16 in San Antonio history…

1956
City Council promised a delegation of 12 Negroes that action would be taken on the repeal of the “Juneteenth ordinance” from last year designating all but two city swimming pools for whites only. The repeal will come before April 14, the day that San Pedro Pool is scheduled to open.  San Pedro is one of the nine segregated pools.  The repeal ordinance drafted by City Attorney Cadena is also expected to remove any segregation in city buildings during public functions, but will not affect the Alamo Heights swimming pool, which is on city-owned property leased by that municipality.

1960
Six downtown stores and a city-wide drugstore integrate lunch counters and cafeterias. The stores were: Woolworth’s, Kress, Neisner’s, Grant’s, Green’s, McCrory’s Variety Store and Sommer’s Drug Stores.

1982
Tommy Tutone, with their new song “867-5309/Jenny” just breaking into the Billboard Top 40, plays Rock Saloon.

March 14 in San Antonio history…

1927
Town crier Julius Myers appears before City Council dressed as a baseball player to appeal to be able to promote baseball games at League Park.  Meyers was recently banned from his town crier duties by the city fathers.  “If I’m granted the right to call out baseball games,” Meyer said, “I will be contented.”

1956
City Councilman Henry B. Gonzalez today proposed that the city act to desegregate the Alamo Heights swimming pool along with city pools, which had been ruled off-limits to people of color on June 19, 1954 – Juneteenth – and one month and two days after the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court case ruled that segregation was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

1972
The disposition of the $750,000 estate of the late Mrs. Emma Koehler, former president of the Pearl Brewing Co., is being resolved in the courts.  Frost National Bank, trustee of the estate, has filed a suit for guidance in the administration of the trust left by Mrs. Koehler, widow of the founder, Otto Koehler.