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ELMENDORF,
TEXAS
Bexar County, South
Texas
FM 327 at the Southern Pacific Railroad Tracks
17 Miles SE of downtown San
Antonio
Population:
664 (2000)
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History in
a Pecan Shell
The town dates from 1885 and was named to honor Henry Elmendorf,
a former mayor of San
Antonio.
Henry went from politics to entrepreneur and is also credited with
opening the area’s first brick
factory. But the credit for discovering the properties of the clay
belongs to W. F. Saenger.
A post office was granted in 1886, and by 1890 the town had a population
of 50. By 1914 it had nine general stores (which may be a record
for a small town at that time), a cotton gin, hotel, and nearly
300 people.
The local economy
revolved around Star Clay Products, which manufactured bricks for
kilns and fire-proofing.
Comfortable with its 300 residents, the town retained that figure
until the 1950s. It declined to 200 but then expanded to 568 residents
for the 1990 census. In the late 1930s, the town became forever-connected
with a grisly axe-murder in which the woman victim was fed to “pet”
alligators.
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Statue
in front of the St. Anthony Catholic Church
More Texas
Statues |
"This
stone house is well known in Elmendorf. Built in the 1920s from sandstone
quarried in a nearby field, the house also contains a myriad of other
objects, including discarded brick from the town's brick plant, pieces
of petrified wood, shards of broken pottery and melted pieces of plastic
sewer pipe from the factory in nearby Saspamco." - Terry
Jeanson, March, 2008
See Texas Architecture |
| This
piece of an old, stone railroad marker was also incorporated into
the house. See Texas
Railroads |
| Cistern
in front of the stone house in Elmendorf. |
| Cistern
date of construction |
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