San Antonio's Historic Market Square

San Antonio's Historic Market Square
128 Pages
ISBN 978-1-4671-2669-4

San Antonio celebrates its 300th anniversary in 2018. In that year, we also pay tribute to the 118th anniversary of Market Square. In 1900, the Municipal Market House was completed. The construction of the building and decades of development in the surrounding area marked the beginning of the market zone in this part of the city. There have been many changes to the market; the most significant was the 1976 renovation. The 40th anniversary of Market Square’s renovation was celebrated in 2016. In 1988, Mary Ann Noonan Guerra published The History of San Antonio’s Market Square. Thirty years later, her book has been a great source of information for San Antonio’s Historic Market Square. Early plazas with their open-air markets were the centers of community. Vendors drove their wagons filled with produce and household goods to the squares before dawn. When the day’s market was over, the Chili Queens set up their stands where they fed locals and visitors. Besides Mexican food, there was music and dancing. As San Antonio grew, the market locations moved farther from the city’s center. Municipal Market House and areas surrounding Paschal Square and Hay Market Plaza became the city market. In the 1920s, the Municipal Market House Annex buildings were constructed to provide better sanitary conditions and modern vendor stalls.

Edna Campos Gravenhorst

About Edna Campos Gravenhorst (St. Louis, Missouri Author)

Edna Campos Gravenhorst

Edna Campos Gravenhorst is an author, historical researcher and a San Antonio Certified Tourism Ambassador; who studied at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico-San Antonio and is bilingual in English-Spanish. This is her second career after spending twenty-five years in sales, merchandising and marketing. She has been published in national newspapers and magazines and has been interviewed in print media, radio and television around the country.
Most recent; Campos-Gravenhorst wrote her 8th book, San Antonio’s Historic Market Square. The book published by Arcadia Publishing in English and in Spanish, will be in the market October 30, 2017. Campos Gravenhorst’s awards include two International Latin Book Awards in 2007 and 2008; and a Kid Power Book Award in 2007. In 2009, she was awarded a Women on the Move Award by the University of Missouri-St. Louis, in 2008 she won a University of Missouri-St. Louis Women Trailblazer Award and in 2007 was named the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers National Star Honorary Member. She is a member of the San Antonio Conservation Society, Briscoe Western Art Museum, Society of Architectural Historians-St. Louis Chapter, the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture Organization, the Society of Latino and Hispanic Writers of San Antonio and Las Comadres.