LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Dear Editor, Mark your calendar and mark it well: we’ve got an anniversary coming up that cannot be ignored. Nor should it. And there’s no better time to start preparing than now.
The Southside Community Center, long an anchor and, more than that, an important living presence on South Guadalupe Street, will be celebrating its 100th anniversary next year. It was in April 1927, when Southside Community Center secured its first home. The location? A one-room storefront at 130 S. Austin Street. Today, that would be S. LBJ Drive, just one block off the Square.
By June of that year, the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, which established the Center, sent in one of its organizers from Austin to plan and implement programs with local volunteers. And here’s something worth noting: what was then called the Latin American Social Center – sometimes simply the Mexican Social Center – was light years ahead of its time. It was led by and relied on the expertise and efforts of a group of dedicated, creative, and incredibly hard-working women.
They had to be; support structures for newcomers to the United States were far fewer then than what we know today – even with the recent immigrant- resource pullbacks and aggressive deportation tactics. And American women had only cast their first ballots in the Presidential election of 1920. So we were a nation that was still coming to terms with a fuller civic partnership with women. The willingness of those early volunteers to step up to meet the needs of the newest Americans was exceptional.
Financial problems soon plagued the new organization. No surprise there, given the general state of the American economy following the 1929 stock market crash, as the dark clouds of the Great Depression began gathering.
Support of the Center became a community project, involving small contributions by the Austin Mission Board, as well as other local churches, clubs, and organizations. Things finally reached a particularly low point when the Presbyterian Mission Board had to halt its $25 monthly payment.
That’s when the Methodists stepped in, recognizing a continuing and growing need for the Center, a role they still perform today. The focus became informal adulteducation, relative to the lives of those served by the Center, with an emphasis on new learning experiences and opportunities.
It wasn’t too long before the Mexican Social Center moved to a new location – with included space for a playground. Staff actually lived in the new location, making do with furniture that included not just others’ cast-offs, but wooden fruit crates, as well.
Not long afterwards, as Hays County opened a new jail, the Center moved – rent free – into the historic old jailhouse on S. Fredericksburg Street. While there, Geneva Gomez was hired as the first Mexican employee.
At $40 a month – just over half the salary of the Director, she quickly proved her worth. She taught organizational and civic skills to the Center’s clients. She established a Parent-Teacher Organization at Southside Elementary School – which served as the Mexican school in the days before integration. She served as the Public Relations Director, although nobody called it that at the time, bringing the Center’s story to local civic groups.
But that wasn’t enough. Ms. Gomez expanded the Center’s activities into the area of public health. While nutrition and other elements of healthful living were a key element of the Center’s activities, . Ms. Gomez expanded the Center’s activities into the area of public health.
At the time, the Southside neighborhood wasn’t served by sewer lines; rather, residents had outdoor toilets. After some particularly harsh flooding, Ms. Gomez and another Center worker visited with the County’s Health Director, informing him of the raw sewage washing through the area, and its related illnesses and deaths. The Director chose to do nothing, saying, “One dead Mexican is one less Mexican.”
Ms. Gomez wouldn’t be deterred. She took her concerns to the office of Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson in Austin. While Johnson made no commitments during the visit, it wasn’t long before sewer lines were extended into the South side of town. In addition, the federal government announced its plans for low-rent housing, the first of its kind in San Marcos.
The Center also did its best to fill the huge gaps in the spotty social safety net of the time. A local historian wrote, “Nobody cared for the Mexicans’ health needs – nobody except the workers at the center and their helpers. And no one cared that the workers at the center had no medical licenses to treat their patients.” But Center folks did what they could, even if it involved arranging for hospitalization when somebody contracted tuberculosis.
By 1947, with the expansion and addition of programs, including a well-attended kindergarten, an active kindergarten Mother’s Club, music lessons, a Visiting Committee, a busy library, and a playground, the Mexican Community Center had become intertwined with the life of the community as never before. It also needed space, and plans were drawn for a brand-new facility of its own. This would be the current building, at 518 S. Guadalupe Street.
Funds were raised locally, property was acquired, and construction was completed in late 1949. The dedication of the new facility, initially renamed the Community Social Center, was dedicated on January 8, 1950. The following year, the name was changed to what we know today, “Southside Community Center.”
While its commitment to the community has neither changed nor wavered – not in its first 50 years and not in the subsequent 49 – Southside Community Center has continually adapted to the needs of the community it serves. Today, many of its programs are largely influenced by the social dislocation resulting from economic factors that have undercut the expectations of generations of Americans that each new generation would do better the one before it.
All bets are off. Stagnation and backsliding have replaced confidence in economic progress. That’s reflected in Southside’s 2025 activities.
Daily Services
- Served 16,000 meals - Distributed 1,000 personal hygiene kits - Provided 600 warm showers - Washed 2,200 loads of laundry - Served more than 1,400 unique individuals - Warming centers in summer and heating centers in winter - Distribution of hats, gloves, and other winter gear Housing
- Served more than 600 unique individuals across all housing programs - Prevented 49 evictions - Provided 266 assistance payments Community Engagement
- 300 Volunteers contributed 2000 hours - 200 donors contributed $90,000 - 20+ Community partners contributed additional support, resources, and staff members The need is great. Over its long and distinguished history, Southside Community Center has consistently shown its ability to minimize spending and maximize results where they count most – with those in need. I first learned about it years ago during a drive along South Guadalupe Street. I asked around, learned what it was all about, and I was sold. Since then, I’ve become an active supporter and encouraged family and friends to join me. I’m happy to say that they did.
As Southside enters its 100th year, I strongly encourage our county and municipal leadership to step up and support Southside Community Center both financially, through the budgetary process, and in any other ways possible. And I also challenge them, on a personal basis, to match my centennial pledge of $100.
Sincerely, Jon Leonard San Marcos P.S. I am indebted to Mary Compton’s 1977 monograph, “We Hear: A Fifty-Year history of Southside Community Center.”
