The Heart of Bexar County

Patrick McMillan has a degree from the
University of California, Los Angeles. They have
been in business together for 20 years.
Together with Toxey and McMillan, Betty
hosted a series of meetings with local elected
county officials and historians. Out of the meetings
came the idea that a series of displays would tell
the history and how Bexar County operated.
But as we talked about her proposal, the
more I realized that citizens would get lost in
the minutiae of the various office functions and
would miss the essence of modern-day Bexar
County, that being the actual projects that we
had built and how they benefited our citizens
and future generations.
Betty and I met with Toxey and McMillan in
their home and office located at 218 Washington
in the King William neighborhood. Their 1917
brick mansion was built by the Gieseckie family.
At one time, Toxey’s grandfather owned the home
and lived there.
We were served tea and cookies in their
living room, surrounded by numerous artifacts
that they had collected over the years. As we
began to talk Toxey looked straight into my eyes
and measured each word I was saying. While I
sketched out a vision, she made notes and you
could see her creativity coming alive.
I told her that I wanted most of the heritage
center to focus on major projects that the
county had taken on and completed in the
modern era. Over the last 20 years, the
Commissioners Court have pushed hard to
bring Bexar County into the modern era by
taking on projects that heretofore were never
been considered before such as amateur sports
parks, a performing arts center and the county
arena where the Spurs play.
At the conclusion of our discussion, she said to
give her some time to put a proposal together. She
stated that she would present us with a series
of displays along with interactive computergenerated
programing. She stated that a series of
dioramas, projections, and interactive panels
using the latest technology would capture the
attention of visitors to the museum.
Toxey/McMillian brought us a conceptual
design of the center in February 2016. A circular
information center included television monitors
that broadcasted a greeting from the county
commissioners court. The exhibits start with the
Spanish and Mexican administrations of Texas;
Texas as an independent nation, her statehood,
the post-Civil War era; and into the modern age.
In the modern era, the first exhibit includes a
crime scene investigation that will explain the role
of the District Attorney, Sheriff, and the forensic
lab and Medical Examiner’s office. Following is an
exhibit of the new $899 million ten-story Bexar
County Sky Tower hospital and six-story
downtown Clinical and Ambulatory building that
the Commissioners Court Funded in 2008. It
included an architectural drawing of the upcoming
$390 million Women and Children’s Hospital that
the Commissioner’s Court approved in 2017.
Next is an exhibit of the restoration of the
Bexar County Courthouse funded by
Commissioners Court, the Hidalgo Foundation
and the Texas Historical Commission. There are
exhibits of the Mission Reach of the San Antonio
River and San Pedro Creek that the county
funded. An exhibit of the new County Arena
that is home of the Spurs and Rodeo and the
restored Coliseum. An exhibit of the Tobin
Center for the Performing Arts, the Alameda
Theater, and the Briscoe Western Art Museum,
all of which were partly funded by the county.
Exhibits of the four missions emphasize the
World Heritage designation the county led the
effort to obtain in 2015. Bexar County
Bibliotech, the world’s first all-digital public
library, has an interactive site where people can
register to become a patron.
All of the exhibits include a series of
dioramas, projections, and interactive panels,
virtual reality portals, text and computer games
and interactive computer research terminals.
Each diorama will be composed of iconic
images, murals, and artifacts.
During the summer of 2019, we hosted the
Institute of Texan Culture’s Summer Teacher
Institute who are focusing on our history and our
role in governing. Teachers from all school
districts participated. They received lesson plans,
take field trips and learn from our Heritage
Center. They will then be able to provide
information to their students that will impress
upon them the importance of local representative
government, the importance of their vote, and
the civic responsibility to one another.
We hosted other interest groups during the
summer and opened the public in August 2019.
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