![]() Wonderland Medical Center which houses two VA Clinics and several independent medical and dental offices.Redevelopment of Wonderland Mall of the Americas, which includes Hobby Lobby, Stein Mart, Burlington, Super Target, Ross and the Santikos Bijou Cinema.Mayor de Leon is guiding the city’s transformation into an urban center that includes: We wanted a place that was convenient to downtown and the airport but also had larger yards and was located in a smaller community.” “We bought a house here in 1987 after moving to San Antonio from Houston in 1986. “We expect to see more redevelopment along the Fredericksburg Road corridor in the near future,” says de Leon. Gateway West: The Much-Travelled Los Balconesīalcones Heights derives its name from Spanish explored Bernardo de Miranda y Flores, according to Lewis F. Fisher’s inciteful city history, who in 1756 thought the stair-stepped hills leading from San Antonio to Hill Country looked like balconies to him so he named the area, Los Balcones. When developers started selling lots in subdivisions in the area, some for as low as $250, they gave the area the name, Balcones Heights. The city is situated on the historic Fredericksburg Road which was a stagecoach route in the 19 th century and then a major military route. In 1919, the Old Spanish Trail, the first transcontinental highway across the southern U.S. “We are making it possible for the person with moderate means to own a homesite in the hills overlooking the city,” said a developer of the first subdivision.ħ2 homesites were sold in the first week and 200 by the end of the first month.īalcones Heights residents voted, to the dismay of the city of San Antonio, on Nov. Balcones Heights Becomes a Regional Shopping Center 13, 1948, to incorporate with 35 for and 3 against.Ī young city had a young mayor with Clyde Crews, age 32, leading meetings that sometimes took place at the Tee Pee Indian Village Restaurant or his own Green Pastures Restaurant.Ī tax-free town, Balcones Heights had a unique early ordinance that required males between the ages of 21 and 45 to spend five days a year working on public streets and alleys.Īs traffic zipped through Balcones Heights, there were enough speeding tickets handed out that the Evening News made it a front-page story in 1955. It may have been tough for Balcones Heights to remain an independent city except that the placement of a major interchange of two interstates, I-10 and I-410 brought commercial opportunities and tax revenue to the city in the 1960s.īy Oct. 24, 1960, Balcones Heights under construction mall site was chosen for a celebration of the world premiere of the movie “The Alamo” with John Wayne cutting into “The World’s Largest Battle of Alamo Cake”.
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