The Heart of Bexar County

15. They made a decision to sell the building
and relocate their staff to a smaller building.
They called to see if the Commissioners Court
were interested in buying the building and we
said we were.
We wanted the building to house the county’s
valuable historic documents. We have numerous
documents including land grants and sales,
mission records, decrees, edits and laws, rebel
properties and post-civil war amnesty oaths, as
well as microfilm of earlier Spanish documents
housed at the Briscoe Center for American
History at the University of Texas at Austin.
The large climate-controlled vaults were
ideal to protect the documents. We also had
room on the first floor to create a display space
and a reading room for citizens who wanted to
do research.
In 2013, we began negotiations to buy the
building that was set on a small city block. They
agreed verbally to sell it to us at market value to
be determined by an outside appraisal. However
later they changed their mind and decided to
choose a developer who would find another
location, build them a new building and buy the
Federal Reserve building.
This was a breach of our verbal agreement.
So, we then decided to start condemnation
proceedings to force a sale to Bexar County. This
did not go over very well with Federal Reserve
officials. They said we had no right to condemn
their property and that they would fight it.
Once we went public with our dispute and
they saw we were serious about condemnation
they finally agreed to sell to us. We finally
reached an agreement on April 8, 2014 to buy
the building based on our original agreement.
We paid the appraised price of $6.5 million.
After we received control of the building an
opportunity came our way to host an exhibit of
Spanish historical documents that tell the story
of the 17th and 18th century Spanish colonial
exploration of the new world and the settlement
of the area that would become Bexar County.
We very much wanted to host the exhibit
because Bexar County’s successful effort to have
the missions and the Alamo inscribed as a
UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015. Our
work began in 2006 when Virginia Nicholas,
Chair of the Bexar County Historical
Commission, first introduced the idea of
applying for inscription. Bexar County
coordinated the National Park Service,
Los Compadres (now known as Mission
Heritage Partners), San Antonio River Authority
and the San Antonio Conservation Society on
the nomination.
On July 5, 2015 we traveled to Bonn,
Germany and were successful before the
UNESCO World Heritage Committee. The
historic Missions and the Alamo were inscribed
as a World Heritage Site, the only one in the
State of Texas.
Betty Bueche traveled to Spain reached an
agreement to borrow documents from the
General Archive of the Indies in Seville, Spain.
She also collected artifacts and documents from
other institutions including maps, official
reports, mission inventories, and religious and
archaeological artifacts.
We built exhibit space on the first floor in
our newly acquired building, located next to the
Bexar County Archives. The successful exhibit
ran from May through September 2016. It was
the first exhibit leading up to the celebration of
our community’s 300th anniversary to be held
two years later in 2018.
As we were preparing for the Spanish
historical document exhibit, I read in the San
q
Below: Bexar County Archives
Building vault where the Spanish
Archives were stored.
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