Mary Virginia Burkholder

The neighborhood Mary Burkholder documented had been through a slump. German families began leaving King William in the 1920s, and after the Second World War many houses fell into disrepair or were cut into apartments. The city designated it a historic district in 1968, and the National Register followed in 1972. Her books, The King William Area: A History and Guide to the Houses (1973) and Down the Acequia Madre (1976), followed in the revival's wake. She also wrote the account of the Anton Wulff House, which the Conservation Society campaigned to buy in 1974.

What the plaque says

Mary Virginia Burkholder Born in 1908, Mary Burkholder moved to San Antonio before 1913. She earned her teaching credentials in 1929 from Our Lady of the Lake College and passionately taught for decades at Jose Navarro Elementary School. In the late 1960s, Mary took on the task of documenting the condition and history of the houses in the historic King William neighborhood where she lived. In 1947, the King William Area Conservation Association formed to preserve their rich history. This effort was reinvigorated by Burkholder and others who formed the King William association on July 28, 1967. As an active member until her death in 1997, she conducted extensive research and published two books on the area's homes, preserving one of San Antonio's oldest neighborhoods. (2017)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• King William Historic District — 0.2 mi
  Mission farmland turned German merchants' quarter on the San Antonio River, renamed in World War I, then saved by a neighbor who restored fourteen houses, starting with his own.
• La Villita Historic Arts Village — 0.5 mi
  The little village across the river from the presidio, where Cos surrendered San Antonio in 1835, rebuilt by Depression-era youth crews as a working crafts village.
• San Antonio River Walk — 0.5 mi
  A Depression-era park one level below downtown, built because San Antonio refused to pave its river after the 1921 flood, and designed by an architect the project later fired.
• Casa Navarro State Historic Site — 0.7 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

• King William Neighborhood — steps away
• Guenther's Upper Mill, Site of — steps away
• Don Jose Miguel de Arciniega — 0.3 mi
• United States San Antonio Arsenal — 0.4 mi