Goad Motor Company Building

Pioneer Texas automobile dealer Thomas Jefferson Goad constructed the 1927 Goad Motor Company Building to house his Cadillac-LaSalle dealership established in San Antonio in 1924. Goad entered the automobile business in Mineral Wells about 1908, expanding to adjacent counties before relocating to San Antonio where he controlled a 52-county area of South Texas. San Antonio architect Harvey Partridge Smith designed the Goad building during the era of elaborate, architect-designed automobile showrooms. The building is one of two San Antonio dealerships known to have been designed by Smith, who is noted for his residential and institutional design as well as his restoration of San Antonio's Spanish colonial architecture including San Jose Mission and the Spanish Govemor's Palace. The main showroom featured decorative Spanish tile, wrought iron grills, wood-paneled doors and imitation travertine pilasters, creating an opulent effect befitting the quality product sold by Goad. As the number of cars in San Antonio increased, both Goad's business and his building grew. A third story was added by 1934, and in 1951, the building more than doubled in size to accormnodate a covered area for the growing used car market and service department. This 1-story addition, compatible with the materials and style of the original building, represents the company's response to the growing demand for used car sales, therefore meeting Criterion Consideration G as a property with non-contiguous Periods of Significance, one of which is less than 50 years old. Though Goad sold his business in 1964, the building continued to house the city's leading Cadillac dealership until 1996 when it was vacated. An excellent representative example of early 20th century commercial architecture as well as of the work of locally prominent architect Harvey P. Smith, the Goad Motor Company Building meets Criterion C in the area of Architecture at the local level of significance.

Thomas Jefferson Goad (1887-1970), an early dealer of automobiles in Texas, was bom in Tennessee and later moved with his family to Arkansas and finally to Mineral Wells, Texas. He received early salesmanship training as a general store clerk in Arkansas, and his later pursuits included picking cotton and working in coal mines. In Mineral Wells, he worked in a dry goods store, sold life insurance, worked as a mail clerk, owned a grocery store, and finally, about 1908, became a broker of Ford automobiles. In 1912, he took over the Mineral Wells Dodge agency, later trading that for the Buick agency. He entered the Cadillac business in 1917, and in 1921, during the prosperity of the oil boom, Mr. Goad opened Cadillac dealerships in Breckenridge and Ranger. In 1924, Goad moved to San Antonio to take advantage of a growing market and became the Cadillac dealer for the surrounding 52-county "southwest territory" (Interview, Mrs. Leon Camp; unpublished biographical sketch of T.J. Goad; The New Encyclopedia of Texas: 2516).

Mr. Goad was a relative late-comer to the automobile business in San Antonio, and in 1924 he found a competitive, growing market in the city. In 1924-25 there were 47 companies dealing in automobiles in San Antonio, as well as numerous automotive-related businesses featuring products including batteries, carburetors, insurance, radiators, seat covers and tops. In addition, auto laundries, garages, and paint shops serviced the city's growing number of cars. By 1926, there were an estimated 30,000 cars in Bexar County (San Antonio Express, September 19, 1926).

Mr. Goad appears to have been the city's sole Cadillac dealer, filling a void left by the San Antonio Cadillac Company which operated from 1919 to 1922 at 411 North Main Avenue, about five blocks from this site (San Antonio City Directories). No Cadillac dealer appeared in the 1922-23 City Directory. The Goad Motor Company, "distributor of Cadillac Motor Cars," opened in 1924 at the comer of East Romana and Augusta Streets, two blocks from this location. Mr. Goad, who lived in the Robert E. Lee Hotel (NR 1995) and the St. Anthony Hotel (NR 1986) before moving to a suburban house, evidently experienced quick success in marketing Cadillac. By 1927, Goad had retained prominent architect, Harvey Partridge Smith (1899-1964) to design a new building for his company.

Goad selected a site at the southeast comer of Lexington and Dallas Streets, just north of the city's central business district in the area named Upper San Antonio by its developers LA. Paschal and Nat Lewis (BCDR Vl:142) (see Figure 8-1). The building site adjoined a small city park known as Madison Square that was surrounded by professionally designed houses including those by prominent residential and courthouse architect James Riely Gordon (The Sketchbook of James Riely Gordon) (see Figure 8-1). Nearby frame houses at 204 Dallas Street and 124 Richmond Avenue were demolished between 1932 and 1939. The R.G. Piper house, a more elaborate residence, remained on the southeast comer of the site at 501 Augusta Street as late as 1951. On the western edge of the park, stood the 1883 Madison Square Presbyterian Church (RTHL 1977). Physicians and Surgeons Hospital and Medical and Surgical Hospital had just opened just south of the park in 1902 and 1924 respectively on the site of today's Baptist Memorial Hospital (founded in 1948). Three blocks south of the Goad site stood the 1852 Ursuline Convent (NR 1969).

The building site was some six blocks away from Broadway where most of San Antonio's automobile dealers located their businesses. There appears to be no explanation for this site except its proximity to Goad's first location. A few other dealers chose to locate away from Broadway including the earlier Cadillac dealership, Neal Motor Sales nearby at 207 Augusta (Ayres and Ayres, c. 1925; demolished), and the Guarantee Motor Company at 711 San Pedro Avenue (Harvey P. Smith, c. 1928; standing).

For the most part, Broadway, the major north/south thoroughfare leading to the new and prosperous suburbs of Alamo Heights and Terrell Hills, became the city's "automobile row." It retained this distinction well into the 1980s, and in 1997, several dealers and automotive-related businesses still remain, including Cavender Cadillac, successor to Goad Motor Company, which relocated to Broadway in late July 1996. Remaining buildings constructed to house automobile dealerships in the 1920s are the Winerich Motor Company, formerly the Woodward Carriage Company (Broadway and Third; c. 1910), San Antonio Buick Company (931 Broadway, 1928), and the Knight-Overland Company (910 Broadway, 1928). None of these buildings has housed an automobile dealership for decades.