Taking stock of local history

Several dozen residents gathered at the Dunbar Center on Monday evening to hear the details of the city’s ongoing historical resources survey and what it means for the city and for property owners.

Elizabeth Porterfield with Hicks and Company, the consultancy conducting the survey, spoke to residents about what the survey does and does not do.

“It really answers the what, where and why — what resources exist in the community, where are they located, and why are they important,” she said. 

Porterfield noted that the survey does not grant any sort of historical designation or put any kind of restriction or obligation on property owners.

“At this point, what we are doing is just an inventory,” she said.

However, she said the survey could generate interest in the preservation of historically significant properties in San Marcos.

Porterfield went over the results of three previous historical resources surveys conducted in San Marcos — one in 1992 that included the Belvin Street, San Antonio Street and Downtown Historic Districts; another survey done in 1996 that included the East Guadalupe and Dunbar areas; and one done in 1997 that focused on the Heritage neighborhood around Belvin and San Antonio streets. 

The current survey includes such a large area, Porterfield said, that it is being done in two phases. Phase 1, which included downtown and Dunbar, has been completed; Phase 2 will include areas to the south and west of downtown and Dunbar and a windshield survey of an area including Hillcrest, Ridgeway, Bluebonnet and Mimosa Circle. 

Porterfield said the survey is an inventory of resources — which can be residences, sites, structures, objects or districts — dating from 1975 or earlier. Surveyors take several photos of each property and evaluate the properties based on National Register criteria. Those criteria include historical or architectural significance, associations (with a famous person or event), and integrity (the degree to which the resource has retained its original appearance). Using those criteria, the surveyors then rank resources as high priority, medium priority or low priority. Low-priority resources are those that are of historic age but lack integrity or significance. Medium-priority resources do contribute some value. High-priority resources are significant enough that they could become landmarks, Porterfield said. 

In the area surveyed in Phase 1, Porterfield said, there were about 943 properties. Of those, “There are 111 high priority,” she said.

Among the properties designated as high priority are numerous buildings on the Courthouse Square (including the Courthouse itself), Cheatham Street Warehouse, the old San Marcos Milling Company, the historic First Baptist Church on Martin Luther King Drive and the old Lamar/San Marcos High School campus on Hutchison Street. 

Porterfield said that public involvement is welcome, especially in gathering information about historic-age properties and photos of those properties.

“We’re always looking for volunteers to help out,” she said.

For more information about the survey and ways to contribute, and to see a copy of the Phase 1 draft and the timeline for the survey’s completion, visit the city's website.