“When we think about the history of the Red-Light District, we overemphasize whiteness,” Lilia Rosas, Ph.D, said. Why then, has 503 Urban Loop survived for this long? Much of Barrio Laredito - a neighborhood west of San Pedro Creek - has disappeared following Urban Renewal actions in San Antonio during the 1970s. “The needs of unplanned pregnancies of sex workers, and having a home for the infants and giving birth to them really starts to make sense when you look at the history of Barrio Laredito.”ģ15 Matamoros doesn’t exist anymore. “We believe that it is no coincidence that 503 Urban Loop is just around the corner from Romana Ramos,” Guerra said. Romana Ramos, for example, was a midwife at 315 Matamoros Street - Casa de Maternidad - during the same period. And Guerra with the Westside Preservation Alliance said that neighboring properties were socioeconomically connected to 503 Urban Loop.
There are more women - while less famous than Porter - who operated the same brothel. There are other details to the structure’s history that are less known. … They robbed banks, they robbed trains.” "The Wild Bunch that were essentially Wild West outlaws - romanticized a little in the movies - but they famously used this (503 Urban Loop) as a hideaway, a place to gather together and before they split up. “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were part of the Hole in the Wall gang," he explained. “She lived in this house for four to five years,” Michael said. The former sign from Father Flannigan's Boys Town is turned backward at 503 Urban Loop.įannie Porter was a sex worker who eventually became a madam at the turn of the 20th Century. When this was brought up to OHP staffers, an ordinance tying the two properties together couldn’t be found. “After further researching the available records, we determined that the designation for 503 Urban Loop is likely an error that occurred about 30 years ago,” wrote OHP Director Shanon Miller in a statement to TPR.ĭocuments intended to prove the property’s historic worth apparently grouped it with the nearby Immaculate Heart of Mary complex. And the city’s Office of Historic Preservation (OHP) staff did not recommend demolition to HDRC.īut sometime between that meeting in early May and now, the structure lost its historic designation. Luckily, for Guerra and other San Antonians who want to save the building, 503 Urban Loop was designated historic. “Part of the historic significance of 503 Urban Loop and the surrounding blocks is that they speak of a whole fabric of sociocultural and economic activities of working class labor, including that of Mexican American and African American women sex workers - and predominantly euro American madams,” Donna Guerra, a member of the WPA, told TPR. Several San Antonio-based organizations, including the Conservation Society and the Westside Preservation Alliance (WPA), spoke out to save the building. In early May 2021, the structure was up for discussion in a Historic Design and Review Commission (HDRC) meeting. Douglas Miller of the Bill Miller Bar-B-Q chain manages the Miller Investment Group. That was all before the two-story structure was bought by the Miller Investment Group, which, alongside Card and Company architects, wants the former brothel and orphanage demolished and replaced with a residential high-rise. It was built in 1883 for Aurelia Dashiell and has several Spanish Eclectic additions.
The business changed hands between other madams, too, when sex work was legally recognized by the city. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid of Wild West fame hid out there. And before that it was Madam Fannie Porter’s “female boarding house” - a brothel. Before that, it was the Carmelite Sisters Day Nursery. It most recently served as Father Flanagan’s Boys Town. Behind a grid of downtown hotels sits a building now known as 503 Urban Loop.
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