San Antonio on Wheels:
The Alamo City Learns to Drive
$18.95
Hugh Hemphill
Foreword by Red McCombs
88 pages, 8 1/2 x 11 inches, softcover, 107 illustrations, bibliography, index
ISBN: 978-1-893271-49-4
Horseless carriages came to San Antonio to stay in 1899. Mechanized transport—including bicycles—revolutionized the way things moved in the largest city in Texas, though it took a little practice. Following a series of mishaps, in 1910 city council adopted a formal set of driving rules. The speed limit was set at 8 miles per hour within one mile of San Fernando Cathedral and at 15 miles per hour beyond that.
This book documents the San Antonio region’s dramatic transition to modern transportation, using a host of previously unpublished photographs and a wealth of new information, brought together here for the first time. The inland city had always been dependent on horses, oxen and mules. The story unfolds as bicycles and then horseless carriages transformed the way people moved around, both in general transport and for recreation. There are rare photos of a turn-of-the-twentieth-century bicycle racer on a wooden track in Brackenridge Park and of auto races on the grounds of the International Fair. Also portrayed is the evolution of streetcars, fire engines, buses and trucks.
Photographs as well as text also portray the struggles of San Antonians to drive beyond, first to neighboring towns like Kerrville and Corpus Christi, then to the rest of the world on a rugged new highway known as the Old Spanish Trail that has since become the general route of Interstate 10.
Author Hugh Hemphill is director of the Texas Transportation Museum in San Antonio and has also written The Railroads of San Antonio and South Central Texas.
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