Texas' First All-Spanish Radio Program

Lozano's program grew out of a brokerage system. In the 1920s and 1930s Anglo station owners sold blocks of airtime to Mexican Americans, many with broadcasting experience in Mexico, who filled them with music, community news and advice on immigration and citizenship. By 1941 some 264 hours a week of Spanish-language programs aired in Texas, Arizona, California and New York. In 1946 the San Antonio broker Raoul Cortez opened KCOR, the first full-time Spanish-language station in the country owned and operated by a Mexican American, with Lalo Astol's radio theater among its programs.

What the plaque says

Texas' First All-Spanish Radio Program "The International Goodwill Program" On October 28, 1928, "Radio Sam" (KGCI, Now KMAC) initiated a two-hour nightly program entirely in Spanish. The station's owner, Sam Liberto, with studios located at St. Mary's University, and Edward Buckley, a businessman, persuaded Julián F. Lozano to produce and announce the program. Until his death on January 31, 1951, Lozano promoted cause of international understanding. In the tradition he established, San Antonio radio stations schedule many hours of programs in Spanish each day. (1973)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Casa Navarro State Historic Site — 4.4 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.
• Spanish Governor's Palace — 4.5 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 — 4.6 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.
• King William Historic District — 4.9 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.

More markers nearby

• Wesley Peacock House — 1.4 mi
• Our Lady of the Lake University — 2.2 mi
• Protestant Home for Destitute Children — 2.4 mi
• Lydia Mendoza — 2.7 mi