Blue Star Street Industrial Historic District
a.k.a. Blue Star Arts Complex
1432 S. Alamo St., San Antonio, TXThe Blue Star Street Industrial Historic District is a collection of four commercial/industrial warehouse buildings constructed between 1917 and 1934 at the northeast comer of the old San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway Yards as a terminal freight railway facility of the San Antonio Belt and Terminal Railway Company.
The Blue Star Street Industrial Historic District consists of four commercial/industrial warehouse buildings constructed between 1917 and 1934 at the northeast comer of the old San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway Yards as a terminal freight railway facility of the San Antonio Belt and Terminal Railway Company. The warehouses were built by private businesses on land leased from the Railway Company which, in return, received rent based on land value and switching fees for use of its railroad sidings. A wide variety of tenants ranging from produce dealers to chemical companies built warehouses that continued in railway ownership until 1967. Never fully vacated, the property was purchased in 1985 by developers of the Blue Star Street Industrial Historic District- taking its name from the site's main north/south street which led to the Blue Star Grain Company property.
The complex is an early, intact example of railway construction designed for freight shipment, and satisfies Criterion A in the areas of Commerce and Transportation at the local level of significance. As an industrial area and centralized point for distribution of agricultural products and freight, the buildings also relate to the statewide historic context of Development of the Railroad in Texas. 1836-1945. The period of significance is 1917, the first date of construction, to 1943, fifty years at the time of nomination. Significant dates of 1917 and 1934 indicate the years of most active development in the complex.
Bibliography
Allhands, J.L. Uriah Lott. San Antonio: The Naylor Company.
Burkholder, Mary V. Down the Acequia Madre. San Antonio: Privately published, 1976.
Davis, EUis A. and Edwin H, Grobe (comp, and ed.) New Encyclopedia of Texas. Dallas: Texas Development Bureau.
Hedge, John W, and Geoffrey S. Dawson. The San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1994.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.