Belknap Place

When Belknap Place was poured, few American roads had a hard surface, and Texas roads were still built by the counties, often with days of labor owed by able-bodied men aged eighteen to forty-five. Good roads associations, formed in 1903, staged auto tours and volunteer roadwork days. Two years after this street was built, the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916 called for state highway departments; Texas registered 194,720 automobiles that year and created its State Highway Department in 1917. In Bellefontaine, Bartholomew's Court Avenue has kept its original concrete for more than a century.

What the plaque says

Belknap Place This street, located in the Monte Vista historic district of San Antonio, is the oldest existing concrete pavement in Texas and a significant civil engineering achievement. At the turn of the 20th century, the U.S. was urbanizing and new, more durable roads were needed for the increased number of motorized vehicles. In 1891, the first concrete street was placed in the U.S. in Bellefontaine, Ohio. This type of concrete road was developed by George Bartholomew and James C. Wonders. Bartholomew learned about cement production at the Alamo Portland and Roman Cement Company, which was the first cement manufacturer west of the Mississippi. Built in 1914, Belknap place was at the forefront of the new pavement technology. It was constructed with an innovative patented process called "granitoid" which used a two-layer placement of concrete. This process has enabled the street to survive 100 years without significant repair. The stamped brick pattern of the road provided a non-slip surface for horseshoes. Construction of the street was approved in 1914 by Mayor Clinton S. Brown and was to start at Dewey Place and end at West Agarita Avenue (0.7 miles). The construction contract of $37,685.66, paid to the Texas Granitoid Company, was split by the city and property owners. This significant piece of engineering history, and one of the oldest surviving concrete streets in the United States, is still fully functional and is a reminder of the era of burgeoning automotive transportation and innovative construction technology. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Spanish Governor's Palace — 2.0 mi
  The last visible piece of the Presidio San Antonio de Béxar: a presidio captain's house with a 1749 keystone, a century as shops and saloons, and a romantic 1930 restoration.
• San Fernando Cathedral — 2.0 mi
  The Canary Islanders' parish church on Main Plaza, where Bowie married and Santa Anna raised a red flag, rebuilt in Gothic Revival around the walls of the 1750s church.
• The Alamo — 2.0 mi
  Mission San Antonio de Valero before it was a fort: a church its builders never finished, a thirteen-day siege in 1836, and the Army gable of 1850-52 that became its emblem.
• Casa Navarro State Historic Site — 2.1 mi
  The adobe and caliche-block home of José Antonio Navarro, a native-born signer of the 1836 declaration, and the last remnant of the Tejano neighborhood called Laredito.

More markers nearby

• The Woman's Club of San Antonio — 0.3 mi
• Monte Vista Historic District — 0.3 mi
• 9th Cavalry at San Pedro Springs — 0.5 mi
• Committee on Public Safety — 0.5 mi