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The original site of the San Antonio Portland Cement Co., makers of Alamo Cement, is seen here in 1892 adjacent to the city quarry. When the company left in 1908 for its Alamo Heights-area location, the land was given to Brackenridge Park.<\/p>\n
UTSA Special Collections<\/p>\n
The Cementville Band poses in front of Municipal Auditorium in 1930. Founded just three years earlier, the band was made up of cement-plant employees with company supervisors as its business manager and conductor. With weekly rehearsals, the band was able to play many classical and popular tunes.<\/p>\n
UTSA Special Collections<\/p>\n
A water tower was one of the last structures left in Cementville after the cement plant moved 14 miles north of the Alamo Heights site in 1980.<\/p>\n
UTSA Special Collections<\/p>\n
Workers at San Antonio Portland Cement gather for this undated photo (probably 1920s). Many were recent immigrants from Mexico.<\/p>\n
UTSA Special Collections<\/p>\n
An aerial view taken in 1976 shows how extensive the buildings and grounds of the San Antonio Portland Cement Co. off U.S. Highway 281 were before the plant moved out to Loop 1604 and Green Mountain Road.<\/p>\n
UTSA Special Collections<\/p>\n
Streets in Cementville were named after families with long history in the community.<\/p>\n
UTSA Special Collections<\/p>\n
A 1950s photograph shows how many factory buildings and facilities were added since the San Antonio Portland Cement Co. moved to a once-remote site in 1908. A company town, Cementville, was added in 1914.<\/p>\n
UTSA Special Collections<\/p>\n
Shown here circa 1950, small wooden houses were home to families of workers at the old cement plant. The community wasn\u2019t served with indoor plumbing until after city annexation in 1956.<\/p>\n
UTSA Special Collections<\/p>\n
I have been working on ancestry research for some time now, and just found out recently that my great-uncle worked and lived with his family at Cementville somewhere between 1934 to 1945. His name was Abraham or Abram Lopez. His wife\u2019s name was Adela Lopez.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Do you know if by any chance there are any records listing names of people who used to work there during that time period?<\/p>\n
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One of the long-gone neighborhood\u2019s chief landmarks was a tall water tower painted with \u201cCementville Texas,\u201d as if it supplied an actual town.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t. Cementville was a company town (covered here March 20, 2011, and Sept. 10, 1995), built in an unincorporated area north of the San Antonio city limits. It was where the Lincoln Heights subdivision and Quarry Market shopping and dining complex are today.<\/p>\n
The San Antonio Portland Cement Co., whose marquee product was Alamo Cement, was founded in 1880 on land leased from the city near the former quarry that is now Sunken Garden in Brackenridge Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The company made cement from limestone quarried on site, pulverized into a dust that could be reconstituted for concrete and mortar. As the latter, it was used in the building of the pink-granite Texas Capitol in Austin, completed in 1888, according to \u201cThe Businesses That Built San Antonio,\u201d by Marianne Odom and Gaylon Finklea Young.<\/p>\n
In 1908, the company \u2013 later known as Alamo Cement, after its marquee product \u2013 moved to an unincorporated area north of the city limits, which afforded room for growth without regulation. The property, including offices, factory buildings, worker houses and gathering places eventually filled nearly 500 acres.<\/p>\n
At the original location, workers lived off-premises. The new site, however, was miles from the nearest streetcar stop at Broadway and Patterson Avenue. Few people owned personal automobiles at that time, and those who did tended to be affluent. \u00a0<\/p>\n
To make it possible to work in this isolated setting, the company built about 70 small wooden houses or \u201ccottages\u201d on gridded streets within walking distance from the factory. Workers, many of whom were immigrants from Mexico, weren\u2019t required to live on site, but most did. Their addresses on forms or when reported in the newspapers were given only as \u201cCementville,\u201d although company streets later were named after families long associated with the community.<\/p>\n
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