Description: 1925 San Antonio Texas Mayor JOHN TOBIN Signed Letter ATLEE B. AYRES From a large private collection of San Antonio historical documents... A letter from Mayor John Tobin to Ayres & Ayres in the Bedell Building. References Auditorium plans and Organ Manufacturers, etc. I believe this would be for the San Antonio Municipal Auditorium. TOBIN, JOHN WALLACE (1867–1927). John Wallace Tobin, sheriff of Bexar County and city mayor, was born in San Antonio, Texas, on June 27, 1867, the son of Josephine (Smith) and William Gerard Tobin. He received his education at St. Mary's Academy and St. Mary's College. At the age of twenty he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Texas militia as a member of the Belknap Rifles, a San Antonio volunteer organization. In 1893 he was elected alderman. He resigned before completing the term to become chief of the San Antonio fire department. In 1897 he was Bexar County treasurer. In 1900 he began his tenure as county sheriff; he was reelected every two years until 1908 and again from 1910 to 1923, a total of twenty-one years. He was known as the "gunless sheriff." Tobin's ambition was to become mayor of San Antonio in the footsteps of his grandfather, John William Smith, first mayor of San Antonio in the Republic of Texas. He succeeded in 1923 and served as mayor until his death. His administration was marked by many public improvements, including the construction of Olmos Dam, the widening and straightening of the San Antonio River, a street-improvement project, the renovation of the city hall, and the construction of a municipal auditorium. Tobin was married to Minnie Thornton on August 15, 1906. They had a daughter, who died in childhood. He was an Episcopalian. Tobin died on November 10, 1927, and was buried in City Cemetery No. 1, San Antonio. ATLEE BERNARD AYRES was born in Hillsboro, Ohio, on July 12, 1873, the son of Nathan Tandy and Mary Parsons Ayres. The family moved to Texas, lived in Houston, and then moved to San Antonio in 1888, where Ayres' father managed the Alamo Flats luxury apartment hotel for many years. In 1890, Ayres went to New York to study at the Metropolitan School of Architecture, a subsidiary of Columbia University. There, he won first prize in the school's annual design competition. His teachers included William Ware, a student of Richard Morris Hunt. Ayres took drawing lessons at the Art Students League at night and studied painting under the noted teacher and artist Frank Vincent DuMond. Upon his graduation in 1894, he returned to San Antonio and worked for various architects. He subsequently moved to Mexico, where he practiced until 1900. That year he moved back to San Antonio and began a partnership with Charles A. Coughlin that lasted until Coughlin's death in 1905. One of their projects was the three-story home of Ethel Draught, at 1215 N. St. Mary's St, now part of the campus of Providence Catholic School. Early in his solo career in San Antonio, Ayres designed a hotel (1907) later known as the Heimann Building, and now occupied by Avance, a non-profit serving children and families in need. He also made the plans for the still-surviving Halff house (1908), and for a villa for Col. George Washington Brackenridge that was later torn down. He also designed the David J. and May Bock Woodward House, which currently functions as a club house for the Woman's Club of San Antonio and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Bexar County, Texas on February 16, 1996... Size is 8.5 x 11 inches, folds, discoloration, tears, etc. D-9
Price: 117 USD
Location: Lake Forest, California
End Time: 2025-01-20T11:00:09.000Z
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