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    San Antonio Cemeteries Historic District
    San Antonio Cemeteries Historic District
    San Antonio Cemeteries Historic District
    Ebook203 pages1 hour

    San Antonio Cemeteries Historic District

    By Frank Faulkner and Linda Faulkner

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    About this ebook

    In his Spoon River Anthology, Edgar Lee Masters uses a series of poetic monologues to have his characters finally tell their true stories from their graves. The first section lets the reader know that all, all, are sleeping on the hill. San Antonio has its Powder House Hill about three miles from its central business district. Known as the Eastside Cemetery District, there are 31 cemeteries here, owned by different religious congregations, fraternal organizations, military groups, and the City of San Antonio. Like Masters s Spoon River, within the Eastside Cemetery District reside people of many occupations and nationalities, including soldiers and statesmen, rich and poor, as well as husbands, wives, and children. Through photographs and research, the authors hope to tell some small part of the stories and the history of this unique burial ground.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateJul 28, 2014
    ISBN9781439646472
    San Antonio Cemeteries Historic District
    Author

    Frank Faulkner

    Frank Faulkner, a librarian, and his wife, Linda, a local teacher, have spent years researching their family histories, and now turn to the lives of those with whom they share San Antonio�s past. Along with their own photographs and illustrations, the authors have reviewed many other sources to show that San Antonio and its inhabitants are more than the Alamo and the River Walk.

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      Book preview

      San Antonio Cemeteries Historic District - Frank Faulkner

      Library.

      INTRODUCTION

      San Antonio’s Eastside Cemetery District is located on approximately 103 acres about one and a half miles east of city hall. Boundaries are Crockett Street on the north, Nevada on the south, New Braunfels Avenue on the east, and Pine Street on the west. It consists of 31 burial grounds that range in size from .06 to 10.6 acres. An average of 70 percent of the burials are pre-1949. With its multifaceted ethnic and cultural complex, the Eastside Cemetery District truly represents the history of San Antonio.

      Early cemeteries had been around San Fernando church and the missions in the traditional Catholic style. During the early 1800s, burials took place in the Campo Santo (now the corner of Santa Rosa and Houston Streets), including what is now Milam Park.

      On April 3, 1848, at the request of the parish priest, the city set aside eight acres, approximately half for a Catholic cemetery and half for a city cemetery.

      On October 2, 1850, city alderman Onesimus Evans asked for a committee to investigate creating a new cemetery for the city near the old powder house. Powder House Hill was the site of some buildings used for storage of powder and munitions by the Spanish. It was mentioned by Berlandier in 1828, sketched by Seth Eastman in 1848, and considered for use by the Confederates later. It is believed to be adjacent to City Cemetery No. 2, on or near the site of the Lucas Monument Works at 1906 East Commerce Street.

      The 1848 expansion stood the city well until January 24, 1853, when city council called for a survey of 20 acres near the powder house. On May 30 of that year, the first lots were sold to the Alamo Masonic Lodge. In the years to follow, other fraternal, religious, and ethnic organizations purchased or were given lots. By the time lot sales ceased in 1902, the complex had grown to its current 103 acres. The old Catholic and city cemeteries of 1848 were leveled and cleaned up, with most of the bodies being moved. However, there is no documentation as to the actual disposition of the burials of either cemetery.

      Another point of interest that some readers will be aware of is that there was once a 32nd cemetery in the area—City Cemetery No. 7. At some time, the area just south of Hermann Sons Cemetery at Dakota Street and New Braunfels Avenue became a paupers’ cemetery. In 1915, city council had been negotiating with the Catholic Church to sell the property. Because of complaints from people in the neighborhood that burials were only three feet deep and the area was unkempt and overcrowded, the city ceased burials there as of March 1, 1923. The bodies in City Cemetery No. 7 were moved to San Jose Burial Park in 1944. At the time, San Jose was bigger than it is now and part of it had been leased to the US War Department in 1941. As the war progressed and the military used the property, the location of the burials was lost. Only about 20 or 25 are known today.

      The Eastside Cemetery District was one of the first west of the Mississippi to follow the pattern of the Rural Cemetery Movement of the early 1800s. Prior to the late 1700s, most cemeteries, like San Fernando, were beside local churches. As communities grew, the smell and health-related concerns caused towns to move their cemeteries away from the inhabited areas, generally to higher locations for better drainage and where they were not likely to be damaged by flooding. The Eastside complex is on a slight rise between Salado Creek and the San Antonio River valley. The southern part was the site of a soft rock quarry. It is relatively flat with little vegetation. There is a thin layer of soil over soft limestone. There are a few natural trees, mostly live oak. Others have been introduced by human or animal intervention.

      The purpose of the authors is to make people aware of the community’s history through those buried in these cemeteries and the history of the cemeteries themselves. In the limited space we have, we will introduce the reader to people of various occupations and social strata, different kinds of gravestones, the iconography of these stones, and the mixture of people from all over the United States and elsewhere who came together in this community.

      There are a couple of things to know that make this not a totally accurate portrayal of the community as a whole. First, the community has always been heavily Hispanic, which is not reflected in these cemeteries. Hispanics have traditionally been Roman Catholic and have been buried in San Fernando Nos. 1 and 2 cemeteries, which are not part of the Eastside cemeteries. Second, the African American population has always been less than 10 percent. There are six African American cemeteries in the complex, but they are small. The primary cemetery for this group for many years has been Eastview Cemetery or Southern Memorial Park, again not part of the group. In regard to both ethnic groups, they have generally been omitted from the public record and are more difficult and time consuming to research.

      At present, there is no published history for the general reader on San Antonio’s Eastside cemeteries. Between June 1989 and January 1991, a study of the Eastside cemeteries was conducted for the Eastside San Antonio Economic Development Council. Sally S. Victor, project director, and her team did an excellent job of general historic research on the project area. The result was The Eastside Cemetery District: Where San Antonio History Lives. The City of San Antonio and other groups contracted and received Old San Antonio City Cemeteries Historic District—Eastside Cemetery Complex Master Plan, published in 1990. This too presented some history and

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