Pistol Packin' San Antonio: 

1882 Dedicated to the very diverse victims, white, brown and black, from children to the           elderly of Uvalde, Buffalo, Sutherland Springs, El Paso, Las Vegas, etc. etc. etc. 

  DEADLY WEAPONS. -Chapter XIII. of the Revised City Ordinances), page 38 and 39, provides as follows : 

  " Section I. If any person shall, within the corporate limits of this city, carry arms about his or her person, a bowie knife, dirk, butcher knife or razor, or any fire arm known as a six shooter or pistol of any kind, or having around his or her person what is known as brass knuckles, slung shot, club, loaded or sword cane, or any other weapon manufactured or sold for the purpose of offence or defense, and capable of inflicting death or great bodily injury, such person shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof before the Recorder of the city,shall be fined in a sum of not less than twenty-five dollars nor more than one hundred dollars, and in default of payment shall be confined in the City Prison, or placed in hard labor upon the public works of the city, for not less than twenty-five nor more than thirty days, to be determined by the Recorder; provided, that this ordinance shall not apply to any legally authorized conservator of the peace, when he may be in the legal discharge of his duty, Section 2. That it shall be the duty of all civil officers from other counties than Bexar, visiting San Antonio, officially or otherwise, who have authority to wear arms, Bexar, visiting San Antonio, officially or otherwise, who have authority to wear arms, shall, upon arriving in the city. report to the Mayor, who shall examine their papers as to their right to wear arms, and endorse the same; otherwise to be dealt with as the law directs." 

 If anyone reading this blog gets angry reading the above quote and wonders when this law came out, they should note that it was written and published for the city of San Antonio in 1882, when the attitude towards weaponry in the city was radically different, it seems, from today. 

 Movies and fiction would have us believe that in the 1880's, the west was totally lawless: most everyone had a six-shooter and in most places, it wasn't safe for ordinary people to walk in the streets. While it was true of some locations, such as the Tombstone and Dodge City, where gunfights really happened in the 1880's, there were far more where it didn't.

 The city of San Antonio did have a famous shooting in 1882. It happened in a saloon and vaudeville house owned by Jack Harris, who was assassinated by Ben Thompson of Austin. Two years later, Thompson would be killed, apparently in revenge along with an acquaintance, King Fisher at the same

venue. The theater's location, above a cigar store at the corner of Soledad Street and Main Plaza became popularly known as the "Fatal Corner," though the building itself burned down in 1886. 

 But these two related events were highly unusual for San Antonio and caused a sensation in the local newspapers. There were certainly violent acts related to drunkenness and gambling in the city, but these were largely confined to Main and Military Plaza areas, in which commerce flourished by day, and drinking in the surrounding saloons at night. By 1889 a "Sporting District," which contained the bulk of 

the saloons and prostitution establishments was established by the city government. For families, there were beer gardens in the German tradition in the more genteel residential districts, which were extravagantly touted along with San Antonio's other businesses in the 1885 in The Industries of San Antonio, Texas.

 What is, to this writer, is more interesting is really how mundane San Antonio was in the 1880's. Finally becoming attached to the greater United States by the introduction of its first railroad line in 1877, and a second four years later, this decade saw the paving of downtown streets--with hexagonal mesquite blocks, a streetcar system, gaslighting being replaced by electricity, and reliable water service. An indicator of the progress in the city was the publication in 1882 of Stephen Gould's The Alamo City Guide. San Antonio, Texas, Being a Historical Sketch of the Ancient City of the Alamo and Business Review; With Notes of Present Advantages, Together With a Complete Guide to All The Prominent points of Interest About the City, And a Compilation of Facts of Value To Visitors and Residents. 

 Gould had been a journalist in San Antonio for some years, and was secretary of the short-lived Mercantile exchange until its demise in 1884. He also seems to have been a one-man chamber of commerce. 

 At the time of the guide's publication, the city had a population of about 20,000 people, which would nearly double during the decade. It had been multi-ethnic since Texas joined the union in 1846, at first being equally divided among its Hispanic, German and Anglo-American inhabitants, with a small number of African Americans, at first enslaved, then freed. By 1880, the proportions shifted, with increasing numbers of Anglo-Americans coming from other states, but the city still retained strong elements of Germanic and Hispanic cultures. 

 There were gunsmiths in the city to be sure, but the firearms trade was aimed at hunters and shooting clubs, which had its origin in San Antonio's German community who sponsored very popular target shoots with medals. 

 A look at contemporary newspapers, the San Antonio Light and the San Antonio Express, reveal few accounts of violence beyond the "Fatal Corner" incidents. Death was far more likely to claim its inhabitants by epidemic diseases and accidents. As Gould put it: 

  "Visitors should remember that San Antonio ranks as one of the best-governed cities in America. The citizens are law-abiding, intelligent, and refined. They are composed of representatives of every nationality in the civilized world, and with accessions from all of the older States of the Union. of human life and personal property are as safe here as in any of the cities of America or Europe, and compared with many far more pretentious cities, San Antonio occupies the first rank for the maintenance of law and order." 

 Almost every issue of the San Antonio Express-News in the twenty-first century reports some sort of murder within city's the urban confines. Part of has to do with the fact that we're now over 1.5 million inhabitants, but I wonder if the number is so high may in part be due to the fact that the 1882 statutes are long gone? It would be hard to imagine a member of the Shooting Club walking calmly down Commerce Street, picking off pedestrians, merchants and the occasional mule, as he went. _______________________________ 

 Stephen Gould's Alamo City Guide is available online at https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009597033

 On the Vaudeville Theater shootouts, see: Alice C. Geron and Gary W. Yantis, Fatal Corner which appeared in San Antonio Monthly in July, 1982, and republished on the Watercress Press website: http://watercresspress.com/previous-site/Fatal-Corner.htm 

On shooting clubs in San Antonio, see Paula Allen's articles in the San Antonio Express News, August 7, 2020: https://www.expressnews.com/life/life_columnists/paula_allen/article/San-Antonio-s-German-style-shooting-club-of-the-15468421.php

 

A recent Texas Public Radio podcast series on the sporting districts can be accessed at https://www.tpr.org/history/2022-04-01/no-boundaries-how-san-antonios-red-light-district-grew

 The best book of 19th-century Photographs with commentary is still, Cecilia Steinfeldt's San Antonio Was, San Antonio, San Antonio Museum Association, 1978.