The biggest quake around here before today’s was in 1993.  Long-timers may remember that just a few days before that quake, inspectors had found some cracking in a pylon supporting the then-new upper deck of I-10 near Woodlawn.  There was briefly some concern that the quake may have done additional damage.  Fortunately, that wasn’t the case and the column was subsequently retrofitted with some additional tension rods.

I checked with the folks at TxDOT and they tell me that they sent inspectors out after today’s quake to look at the bridges on state highways in Atascosa County.  Everything checked-out fine.

Ribbon-cutting for Loop 410 expansion

For the past 30 years, San Antonians have complained about construction along Loop 410.  But no more.  As Mayor Julian Castro said during today’s Loop 410 ribbon-cutting ceremony, “the headaches are over!”

The last leg of the nearly $1 billion “410 for SA” project to improve Loop 410 across the northside of San Antonio is just about done with just a few final “punch list” items remaining, so TxDOT and other local officials– including the Mayor, County Judge Nelson Wolff, VIA boss Keith Parker, and city councilman John Clamp– took the opportunity today to celebrate the culmination of 30 years of work that widened Loop 410 from six to 10 lanes from Perrin-Beitel to Culebra and built new interchanges at US 281, San Pedro, I-10, and Bandera Rd.  All of these improvements have helped get Loop 410 “ahead of the curve” with regards to traffic and has significantly cut congestion and delays throughout the corridor.  And the completion comes just in time: 2009 traffic counts show that Loop 410 has regained its position as the busiest highway in San Antonio with an average of 215,000 vehicles per day between I-10 and US 281.

Getting here has been an adventure.  TxDOT began working on plans for Loop 410 back in the early ’80s shortly after work to widen the freeway from four to six lanes was completed.  For those of you who were here in the mid ’80s, you may remember front-page newspaper reports about one of the proposals being looked at: double-decking the freeway.  Those plans were later refined to the 10 lane freeway that is now in place and the first “preparatory” projects for the I-10 interchange began ca. 1988 with the widening of the Cherry Ridge and Fredericksburg overpasses.  A public meeting to discuss the plans for Loop 410 held at Aggie Park in 1995 was the first such meeting I ever attended.  Two years later, the first significant widening project expanded the segment from West Ave. to Cherry Ridge.  The section between McCullough and US 281 was widened and prepared for the planned 218/410 interchange in 2001 (remember the “stumps” that were put in place there that became the foundations for the elevated ramps?)  The section from I-10 west to Callaghan was widened in 2003, followed by the section from West Ave. to Blanco in 2005.  On all of those early sections, only eight of the eventual 10 lanes were initially marked to reduce the bottlenecks that remained on each end.

In 2008, the “keystone” section– that being from from Blanco to McCullough– was completed.  This provided a continuous widened stretch (except for the I-10 interchange) from North Star Mall all the way over to TxDOT’s offices at Callaghan.  Jones-Maltsberger to Broadway and the 410/281 interchange were finished the following year.  Work on the I-10 interchange, including widening Loop 410 to eight lanes, was completed in early 2009.  The elevated Bandera connectors and work to widen the section from Callaghan to Ingram was completed in mid 2009.  Finally, the section from Broadway to Perrin-Beitel is now wrapping-up.

Some folks may wonder why it took so long to complete this project.  The answer is simple: funding.  With a $1 billion pricetag, the project had to be broken-up into many phases to stay within funding constraints.  In fact, the eastern segment– the one being completed now– was not even expected to be funded until later this decade, but local voters approved the Advanced Transportation District (ATD) and its sales tax in 2003, part of which was dedicated to that project and enabled it to receive matching funds from the state far sooner than it otherwise would have. 

Another question is what will happen east of Perrin-Beitel.  That will be looked at as part of a major investment study of what to do along I-35 North.  Major improvements to the Fratt Interchange will be included with that, so nothing will be done east of Perrin-Beitel until those plans are finalized.

Sadly, given the current transportation funding situation in both Washington and Austin, the completion of this project essentially marks the end of a highway construction boom in San Antonio.  Over the past seven years or so, over $2 billion worth of highway improvement projects have been completed, largely as a result of the ATD tax, borrowing at the state level, and pass-through agreements with local entities.  The only major projects currently in the works are the Wurzbach Parkway and the first phase of the 281/1604 interchange, which unfortunately is facing a possible legal challenge.  Beyond that, unless and until the state Legislature figures-out how to solve the transpo funding issues that Texas faces, there won’t likely be any other major projects coming to fruition unless they’re tolled.  That’s just the reality of today.  And while some people may be relieved that construction zones and their associated headaches may be taking a hiatus, keep in mind that this also means that there is little relief in sight for the remaining congested areas and bottlenecks.

Polikarpov I-16 at the CAF museum, Midland, Texas

Rolling forward on my 2010 resolution to get out of San Antonio more, I took a three day trip to Midland and Odessa, two cities, indeed a region of Texas, I had not visited before in the nineteen years I have called the Lone State home.  I set out on the last Thursday in July, which proved to be a very good time to go.

For whatever reason, HWY 87, the route I decided to take on the outward bound leg, was essentially empty north of Fredericksburg.  Even when I drove into San Angelo just after 5:00 PM, traffic on the road was very light.  It just seemed odd to traverse handsome county seats like Mason and only see one or two other moving vehicles.

Following a stroll around Fort Concho which closed just before I got there, I continued on towards Big Spring before getting onto I 20 heading west to Midland.  Traveling by myself, with just an ipod for company, the landscape became flatter and the wind grew stronger.  A veritable forest of massive electricity generating wind turbines dotted the landscape, harvesting the enormous amount of free energy that just about knocked me over when got out of the car for a moment.

The hotel I chose was inexpensive in every way, but you get what you pay for, so I have no complaints.  I spent the whole of Friday, which happened to be my birthday, driving around the sights of Midland and Odessa.  My first port of call was the Commemorative Air Force museum.  To my surprise and delight I pretty much the whole place to myself during my 2 ½ hour visit.  As most CAF aircraft are dispersed around the country in different locations, like the Douglas C-47 Skytrain I hoped to fly in yesterday, which is based in Burnet, Texas, or the North American B-25 Mitchell located here in San Antonio, there were not all that many aircraft to actually see in Midland.  But I was thrilled to the core to find one of them was a Russian Polikarpov I 16.  As a youth, I used to make model airplanes – none to well, I must admit – and I loved the diminutive little plane, which, to my eyes, looks remarkably like the Brewster Buffalo.  Both were cutting edge designs when introduced in the early 1930s but were significantly obsolete by the time World War Two started.  With little else available, young men bravely continued to fight the good fight in these machines, sometimes achieving remarkable success despite the odds stacked against them.

I never dreamed I’d ever actually see one up close and personal.  It was absolutely the peak moment of my 800 mile journey and would have made the entire trip worthwhile in and of itself.  I also visited the oil industry museum, which was not laid out so well for those who know nothing about the industry, in my opinion.  I’d have done better with a guide, I think.  It’ an impressive place for sure but a little overwhelming and incomprehensible.  Rich in detail but somehow lacking in drama, of what odds and difficulties the individuals involved had to face.

Also a little disappointing was the crater site west of Odessa, mainly because the original vast hole dug by a meteorite the size of a Suburban yet weighing a thousand tons is all but filled 50,000 years later.  I enjoyed rolling around Odessa, and got to visit a remarkably well restored railroad depot, originally located in a tiny town called Texon, now located about seven miles from the city, in someone’s backyard.  Acquired in an almost disintegrated state, the owner has poured money, time and effort into bringing it back to its former glory.

Midland is the more impressive of the two cities which are maybe fifteen miles apart by interstate.  The smell of hydrocarbons, or money, is quite pervasive wherever you go.  I’m certainly glad I finally took the time to go there but, a bit like Big Bend, I’m not itching to go back any time soon.  Bleak landscapes don’t work for me.  I couldn’t stand to live in a place where if I traveled fifty miles I’d still essentially be in the same place.

I came back via lesser roads, again wonderfully empty of other vehicles, aiming first for Ozona and then the Caverns of Sonora Located off of IH 10 some two hundred miles west of San Antonio, this natural wonder is most definitely worth a visit.  The tour lasts just under two hours.  It was a nice finish to a trip that seemed, to quote Joni Mitchell, to be all about the land and the sky.

 The aircraft is flown to a lot of air shows.  I saw it and met the crew in Hondo earlier this year.  Since then the shiny silver plane has been to any number of events, including the annual air extravaganza in Oshkosh.  I’m really looking forward to making the flight, which costs $125.00 per person, a heck of a deal if you ask me.  The C-47 is the military version of the Douglas DC3, the twin radial engined aircraft that finally enabled airlines to fly profitably.  Its role as a military transport was so impressive that General Dwight Eisenhower said it was one of the four tools that ensured the allied victory.

UPDATE: The “Bluebonnet Belle” developed an engine problem during the return flight from Oshkosh.  It has yet to be determined how long it will take to make the needed repairs.  Then we will have to find a mutually acceptable date for all the people involved, including the aircrew and the original group of five.  If seats remain available I will post an invite on this blog.

 If you are interested in flying with us, post a reply right here on the blog and I’ll get in contact with you.  In the mean time, here is a link to the Highland Lakes Squadron web site, where you can find out more about the “Bluebonnet Belle” plus get the details of where they are located.

 http://www.highlandlakessquadron.com/HLS1/AircraftC47.html

            Recently I became involved in an upcoming PBS documentary on the perhaps unlikely subject of the resurgence of olive cultivation in the old “winter garden” areas between Carrizo Springs and Del Rio.  The story is, however, ripe with fascinating perspectives, including the “eat locally produced food” movement, and the original need for a means to transport the crops being grown in the area, which is where I come in, as the only person around who has spent time researching the history of railroads in the area, which has resulted in voluminous amounts of information on the Texas Transportation Museum web site and two locally published books.

            Over the last five years I have made numerous trips to Uvalde which has, over the past 127 years had the services of no less than four different railroads – the Southern Pacific, the Crystal City & Uvalde which was renamed the San Antonio, Uvalde & Gulf, the Asphalt Belt and the Uvalde & Northern..  Each time I visit the town I learn something new.  When I was there on Friday, the day after the trip by train to Del Rio, I found out exactly how the old SAU&G connected with the SP mainline, plus the exact location of both the SP and SAU&G depots.

            My delight in being invited to be an on camera participant in the documentary should have motivated me to at least try to find out about the railroad in Del Rio as well.  You might be able to understand my discomfort when I could not say for sure exactly when the current masonry depot,  now with a well made, compatible, bus station attached to it, was built.  I certainly knew it was not the original structure, which would have been of wooden construction.  I was in good company.  Representatives of the Del Rio city council, who supplied a bus for our group of eighteen to visit a local olive orchard and grape vinyard, did not know either.  A PBS executive from KLRU in Austin used her iphone to look it up on the web, only to find an absurd site that said not only was the depot the original structure, it was also built in 1876, seven years before the first train arrived.  A city transportation employee, who used to come down to the depot as a girl, and who was able to tell me about the original interior layout of the depot, was able to find a couple of old pictures.  One showed the original depot and the other showed the current structure when it just been completed.  Using the automobiles as a reference, it would appear to have been built in the mid to late 1920s, which is about the same time the entire downtown area was rebuilt, replacing frontier structures with pleasant looking “modern” buildings, to reflect the city’s growing wealth and importance.

            Not wanting to make the same mistake when I go with the film crew to Crystal City, Carrizo Springs and Asherton, I decided to visit these places the following day.  Accompanied by my good friend and avid railroad enthusiast, Fred Bock, the trip was most successful.  Having spent some time in Uvalde itself, we headed south on Highway 83.  Regrettably there did not seem to be anywhere worth stopping to seek information in La Pryor, the first community created by the Crystal City & Uvalde in 1909, but, contrary to the “warnings” given to me in Uvalde, Crystal City was another story.  Following a pleasant tour of the city, where the railroad once ran bold as brass right down the main street, we went to the city library, followed by the immediately adjacent town hall and county court house.  Every community, I have found, has a keeper of the flame, an individual noted for his or her knowledge of local history.  On this occasion, on a late Friday afternoon, the owner of an abstract company was unavailable.  His mother had passed on an unparallelled collection of early local photographs.  Many are on his office walls and even more are on the walls of the local bank.

            By the time we arrived in Carrizo Springs it was raining cats and dogs.  It was also after 5:00 PM and the library was closed.  Nonetheless, we were able to get the measure of the place for a future visit.  In my experience you hardly ever get much on a first visit, but you do get to sow seeds that usually bear handsome fruit on subsequent trips.  The rain let up while we took a break and a snack in the local Dairy Queen, but the sky looked so ominous we decided to forgo a visit to Asherton and, instead, follow the route of the “Sausage,” the nickname given to the SAU&G, eastward towards Pleasanton.  Because the tracks from the main Missouri Pacific line that still run alongside IH 35 were only pulled up in the 1990s, their evidence is still fairly obvious.  The same cannot be said for some of the communities that sprouted briefly along the line.  Some, like Los Angles, were nothing but a motley collection of dilapidated houses and farm buildings.  Others, such as Hindes, were reduced to a mere sign post.  On the other side of the freeway, towards Charlotte and Pleasanton, finding even a trace of the tracks is all but impossible.  They were removed in the early 1950s, some sixty years ago.  Railroads in general are very benign to the environment and the impact of the right of way is easily erased from the landscape.

            I now feel as though I am in better shape to speak knowledgably about this line.  However, several more expeditions to the area, including one to follow the line of the Asherton & Gulf, which connected with the MOPAC mainline a little further south.  I’m keen to see not only Asherton but Caterina, which was developed by Charles Taft, the brother of then President William Taft.  The local hotel which I believe still exists, supposedly has oversize baths to accommodate the chief executive and, later, Supreme Court judge’s well known girth.

            While a lot of filming for the documentary, which will also include a lot of music, some of it played on instruments originally owned by the Richardson family and kept at their grand mansion in Asherton, has been completed, there is still a good amount still to be done.  Some will occur at the Texas Transportation Museum, where a recreation of thousands of people arriving by train during the heyday of land sales will be filmed in late August.  These land rushes were, in fact, one of the last and largest population migrations in US history, attracting would be farmers from all over America and even Europe to sub-divided ranches.  A group of 160 Mennonites came from Ohio in 1910, to settle in a community called Beachy.  Located near Brundage, itself now not much more than an empty crossroads, the land where the community, which was abndoned in 1914, once stood is now part of an oil field.  It is hard to even begin to put yourselves in their shoes, when both the artesian wells and then the rain dried up and their high hopes turned to dust.

            But hope springs eternal and the humble olive, originally cultivated a hundred years ago, is making a major comeback, bringing with it the possibility of a resurgence of sustainable cash crops that are climate and soil appropriate.  It may just turn out that Asher Richardson and other developers, such as Charles Simmons, who built the Artesian Belt RR which put Poteet, Jourdanton and Christine on the map, were just a century ahead of their time.

Augusta Street bridge, San Antonio

My wife and I spent some five hours out and about on our bikes yesterday, heading downtown from our house near Red McCombs Ford outside Loop 410 to the King William district.  Altogether it came to a trip of 22.35 miles, mostly along San Antonio’s old main thoroughfares, San Pedro Avenue and Fredericksburg Road.  We set of around 8:00 AM, when it was only 80 degrees and got back just before 1:00 PM, when it was well over 90.

 The reality is I have all but given up cycling again.  It was not my idea in the first place.  And since, for my wife, cycling is so 2009, our nearly new expensive machines have become, more or less, garage junk.  During the first twelve months I rode just over 20 miles a week.  Most of these were round trips of 24 miles to and from my two jobs.  This year, for several reasons, I am not doing that any more.  Essentially I don’t have the time to extend my commutes from twenty minutes each way to an hour.  Who has two hours to give up just to get to work?  Plus my hours changed at Camp Bullis.  I now quit at 9:00 PM.  Riding at night in any major city is not particularly smart.

 It’s also even more boring than riding during the day.  That is my major issue, truth to tell.  Cycling is just dull hard work.  I’m not the kind of person who marvels at the changing scenery and architecture.  I’m not interested in “raising my performance” as all the bicycle literature is forever exhorting us to do.  Learning how to endure pain in order to go nowhere in particular fractionally faster is a fool’s errand if ever I heard one.

 I did enjoy owning a bike in Aberdeen Scotland.  In fact I did not learn to drive until I was around 26 years old.  But, once I got behind the wheel of an automobile, I found my ability to explore the Grampian countryside an eye opening experience and, before I knew it, my biking days were over.  It was almost a relief when my rather nice touring bike was stolen.

 So, why the trip yesterday?  I am working on adding several additional local transportation history “chapters” on the Texas Transportation Museum web site.  I wanted to take a whole bunch of snaps of roads and bridges to go with the voluminous amount of material I have amassed.  While I could have driven downtown, it occurred to me that going by bicycle would be a lot more convenient plus probably afford a far greater number of photo opportunities.

 I was right, for once.  I was delighted when my wife said she wanted to come along.  Between us we must have taken over four hundred snaps of things like the Augusta Street bridge near the main library and the Arsenal Street bridge in King William, where we encountered tourists on Segways and three wheel bicycles.  The major benefit to digital cameras is that it allows a person to adopt Stalin’s dictum that quantity has a quality all its own.  In other words if you take enough shots one or two are bound to be OK, if only by the law of averages.

 Despite the fact we were pretty wiped out by the time we got back to the house, I am beginning to think there might be a future in using or bicycles in this way in the future.  I can see us taking our bikes and cameras to other towns and just slowly roaming around, making frequent stops and taking a boat load of snaps.

 In conclusion, this was the first time I ever used a bicycle to perform work, as opposed to just getting there.  As an adjunct to spending time in libraries and going through musty records in obscure archives, it has a lot to be said for it.  You can be aware that at the intersection of Fredericksburg Road, and IH10 you have the old railroad to the Hill Country crossing the old main road to the same destination in the shadow of the interstate that has rendered both obsolete, but I don’t think you get to truly appreciate the labor involved any better than when you yourself are providing your own motivation.

UP at TTM

I am delighted to be able to be able to share a positive story about the Union Pacific railroad, an organization which rarely gets much in the way of good press in these parts.  Today the UP came to the rescue at the Texas Transportation Museum here in San Antonio like knights in shining armor.

 Our 1954 Baldwin diesel electric locomotive was suffering from an intractable electrical problem.  The diesel engine was running just fine but somehow the electrical power it was generating was not reaching the electric motors on each of its four axles.  (You could say that the railroads have been using hybrid technology for over seventy years and the automobile industry is only just now catching up if you didn’t know that there actually were hybrids at the very first car show held in New York in 1900.)  Anyhoo, like many electrical system gremlins, this one needed a professional to both find and then fix it.  Our guys, all volunteers, as good as they are, just couldn’t trace the exact point of dysfunction.

 The Texas Transportation Museum is lucky to enjoy a very good relationship with the Union Pacific.  Following the arrival of Brian Gorton in 2005, the UP has been supportive of the museum’s endeavors in a number of significant ways, including the donation of almost half a mile’s worth of “gently” used railroad ties a few years ago.  When our almost sixty year old locomotive needs professional help, when the problem is beyond our amateur skills and facilities, the UP has been kind enough to send over a staff member or two who have yet to fail to get the “4035, an ex-army switcher, back in business.

 What made today a little unusual was that the folks we normally call were unavailable for one reason or another.  So museum curator Jared Davis decided to call the main UP HQ in Omaha, Nebraska.  After a little bit of explaining he was forwarded to staff here in San Antonio.  Before long Robert arrived and began doing his thing.  If you think finding a discontinuity in an automobile is tough, just try doing it on a make and model of a locomotive with which you are totally unfamiliar, one that came out in your grandfather’s time.  So it took a while, over an hour, but, by golly, the job got done.  The problem was in the electrical cabinet within the cab.  It looked just fine, but that’s the thing with electrical connections: the problem can be right before your eyes but totally invisible at the same time.

 So, even though it was midday on a hot Saturday, the Union Pacific came though for us, once again, in spades, just in time for an influx of afternoon visitors.  It was a good day, all in all.  Work to restore the exterior of our burnt out party caboose is almost complete.  Much needed yard work at the garden railroad was done.  A little bit of road maintenance too, to take out a bad bump experienced during the first fire truck ride of the day.  There were around fourteen volunteers all told, and every part of the museum was up and running.  Not bad.  Not bad at all.

The main road to Corpus Christi, circa 1910

A wee trip to the coast, a fine way to spend a hot and hazy Sunday.  While I’m still stuck in bachelor mode – decide to go, jump in the car and away – my wife needs, shall, we say, a little more, um, preparation.  Providing my ipod is loaded and charged, I am sorted.  She, on the other hand, loaded our vehicle like the old days when we were carrying a baby.  Blankets, pillows, books, a lap top for heaven’s sake, towels, changes of clothes, the works.

 I chose our route.  Down Highway 181 on the way there and IH 37 on the way back.  The distance is just about the same but I prefer to meander on the way there and haul boogie on the way back.  You get to see more of the small towns and countryside on 181.  It follows the long gone tracks of the San Antonio and Aransas Pass, from Elmendorf through Floresville, Poth, Falls City, Karnes City, Kenedy, Beeville, Skidmore, Sinton, Gregory and Portland before crossing the causeway to Corpus Christi.  Each of these communities was created by the railroad back in the 1880s.

 IH 37 follows, more or less, the route of the old San Antonio, Uvalde and Gulf.  Finished in 1914, the last railroad built in our area, this railroad, too, helped found a few towns and move a few county seats, but they lack the charm of the earlier era.  No more squares and handsome civic buildings, unless you count George West.  Just utilitarian structures strung along the old main drag, now rendered obsolete by the interstate.  From experience, many of these places look better at 3 AM than they do at 3 PM.  Here you set cruise control and barrel through nondescript landscape.  These are miles to be endured, not savored.

 Some years ago a friend and I did the same route far more thoroughly, doing our best to find every remaining trace of the old SA & AP.  Like most local railroad enthusiasts, to him the SAU&G, often refereed to as the “Sausage,” is just chopped liver, a Johnny Come Latelyupstart.  The fact that the “SAP” was a failure in every measurable way somehow adds, apparently, to its romantic allure.  I was obliged to go solo through Three Rivers, Campbelton and Pleasanton on another day.  And it isn’t chasing ghosts either.  The “Sausage” is alive and well and was part of the reason the Toyota factory is where it is.

 Click this link for the web pages referring to these ventures

 http://www.txtransportationmuseum.org/RAMBLE2.htm

 Going to the coast a hundred years ago would have be a fine trip indeed, requiring an overnight stay if you wanted to get the most benefit out of it.  Arriving at the station early in the morning to ride in cars without air-conditioning for seven hours would make a person appreciate the shore all the more.  Of course Corpus Christi was a different place then.  No deep water port and vulgarly intrusive freeway slashing its way through the heart of the old town, of which most traces have gone, perhaps as a result of storms, who knows.  Now you can leave the parking lot at the Lexington and be home in less than two and a half hours without breaking any laws, carrying enough baggage to fill the old aircraft carrier, in comfortable A/C, and listening to your own personal play list.  It’s a good trade.

Here is a link to a set of snaps taken at the recent fourth annual Ford Model T Show here in San Antonio.  It is a joint project with the local Model T club, the “T Fords of Texas,“ and sponsored by the Red McCombs Automotive group.

http://www.txtransportationmuseum.org/WE.htm

 It was during this event that I arrived at the surprisingly conclusion that all  Ts are divas.  That’s why they are still here.  Someone was just too crazy about each one to let it go.  So far this year I have had the pleasure of touring both Medina and Caldwell Counties in this persnickety old machines and I fully understand the devotion.  Now all I have to do is get the one I am looking after for future generations to run right!  Having said that she did come through in spades during the Flambeau Parade, so she makes all the effort worthwhile!

I-10 south of De Zavala looking north, 1966 (TxDOT archive)

After returning from my Florida vacay a couple of weeks ago, I spent the balance of my time off of work at the TxDOT archive in Austin.  I had been wanting to go for years after seeing some of the great historical photos from there on other roadgeek websites.  I was not disappointed.

The TxDOT archive is primarily composed of photos from the Texas Highways magazine and includes lots of tourist-type photos, but it also contains photos taken by TxDOT engineers over the years of various road projects.  Many of the photos were for publicity purposes, but in the early days of the federal road aid program, the engineers were required to take photos of their projects to include in reports sent back to Washington to prove that the money had been spent on the project.  Sometimes they included before-and-after shots, which I always find particularly interesting.

Since I only had one full day (spread-out over two half-days), I focused my search initially on my number one desire, that being historical photos of the San Antonio expressway system.  It turns-out that there was already a whole indexed drawer of about two dozen or so of nothing but “San Antonio Urban Expressway” photos, and I knocked that out in an hour or so.  So then I was free to browse through the remainder of the collection for other interesting photos of local roads over the years and boy did I find a bunch.  Besides other photos of local expressways that were filed under different subject headings, I also found lots of photos of the earlier US and state highway system here.  Many of them had no location listed or an incorrect location, so I’ve been spending the past couple of weeks determining those locations and I’m proud to say that for all of them except one (which I’ve posted below), I have been able to find the location through a combination of my own knowledge of the city coupled with Google Maps and a follow-up field survey.

"San Antonio Expressway Overpass" - Location unknown, ca. 1955 (TxDOT archive)

My two days yielded about 150 photos, although some were duplicates.  For that and other editorial reasons, I’ve eliminated about a fourth of them– the rest are going on my website.  I’ve posted the first batch, those being the expressway pics.  I’m working on organizing the off-expressway photos and will post them soon.  I also picked-up a couple of interesting articles, maps, and factoids that will make their way onto my site as well.  My only disappointment was the utter lack of photos of Loop 410– I only found one, and it was relatively recent (ca. 1990).  Given Loop 410′s history and importance to this area, I had expected to find substantially more.

I want to give special thanks to Anne Cook at TxDOT for her help.  She’s a great person who obviously loves her job– she’s been doing it for over 20 years.  She’s pretty much a one-woman show whose job includes organizing the collection, digitizing it, and handling requests from people like me.  Use of the archive is free; as Anne says, your tax dollars paid for it, so as long as there’s no incidental cost to the state, folks are free to peruse and make their own scans of everything.  Most of the Texas Highways photos have copyright limitations, but the stuff done by TxDOT staff is public domain.  The archive is not the simple collection of drawers with photos that I had expected– there is some of that, but the room is a smorgasbord of archiving.  There were several special cabinets with tons of photo slides, lots of three-ring binders full of those old federal aid reports, bookcases with old district reports as well as books done about Texas highways over the years, and lots of other cabinets I didn’t even get to.  Just before I left, as if to ensure that I would come back some day, Anne pointed-out a set of photo cabinets near the back– “you can go through these next time you’re here”.  Those apparently are drawers full of hundreds– or even thousands– of photos nobody has had a chance to catalog and file yet.  I guess I know where I’ll be spending some time from my next vacation!   

Related links:

• TexasHighwayMan.com - San Antonio area freeway system historical photos gallery
• TxDOT photo library