Chad Carey grew up in Dallas, but he has memories of visiting his grandfather in San Antonio, where they would get a meal at Teka Molino at 2403 N. St. Mary’s St.
“I remember seeing tortillas roll off their tortilla-making machine,” said Carey.
The space once occupied by Teka Molino on North St. Mary’s is now home to Midnight Swim, one of a handful of bars and clubs that Carey owns on what locals have long dubbed “the Strip.”
Carey’s recollections of Teka Molino is exactly what volunteers behind the St. Mary’s Strip History Project are seeking.
Abra Schnur, a San Antonio native and an archivist at Trinity University, launched the online history project last spring.
Having grown up on North St. Mary’s, Schnur recalls she and her family grabbing breakfast at El Milagrito Cafe and enjoying dinner and live music at neighborhood spots such as Tycoon Flats, St. Mary’s Bar and Grill and Salute International Bar.
In her teens, Schnur visited now-defunct neighborhood shops such as Blue Moon and Eclectica. When she came of age, Schnur saw concerts at clubs such as El Toro, The Mix, Limelight and White Rabbit, which is now Paper Tiger.
Schnur moved out of town in 2008. She recalled that, upon her return to San Antonio in 2020, she felt compelled to create a way of formally preserving the history of the St. Mary’s Strip.
As an archivist with experience in oral history and news reporting, Schnur said that by collecting people’s stories, photos, event flyers, recordings, newspaper clippings and other artifacts, the result will be a resource for community members who are curious about the Strip’s evolution.
“I wanted to apply what I do professionally to a community project,” Schnur said. “It’s a passion project. While I’m not able to devote as much to it as I’d like, it’s going as well as it can go.”
Aside from online engagement, Schnur hosts monthly meetups — or as she calls them “history harvests” — at businesses along North St. Mary’s where attendees can share their stories and memorabilia for preservation, including old restaurant menus, band press kits or records by musicians who have played bars and clubs that are still open or closed long ago on the Strip.
Schnur collaborates with Michael Ann Coker, owner/operator of the Texas Popular Music Museum. Based on the Northeast Side, the museum acts as an archive focused on preserving South Texas music history and is helping Schnur with her history harvests.
“Our last meetup at El Milagrito was really fun. One gentleman brought in a bunch of photos,” Schnur said.
John Santos, who booked shows at the White Rabbit in the 1990s, contributed to the history project. According to Santos, Wacky’s, which later became Limelight, and the North St. Mary’s Brewing Co. were among the most popular places to see area musical acts.
“The shows at Wacky’s were so electric that the building actually sweated. My friends and I would be skating on the floor because it was so sweaty inside,” Santos said.
Santos said local punk, heavy metal and alternative rock bands regularly played venues all along the Strip in the 1980s, ‘90s and into the early 2000s. But, he added, White Rabbit was a hub of activity.
“A ton of bands grew up in that room,” Santos said of White Rabbit.
Santos said residents and business owners along the Strip have maintained a sense of community through good economic times and challenging times, Santos said.
“In one way or another, a lot of us in the local music scene grew up on the Strip,” he added. “It’s a place where different local cultures culminate, tied together by North St. Mary’s.”
In his line of work, Carey said he frequently meets locals who have fond memories of past and present North St. Mary’s bars and clubs, including the White Rabbit, which was renamed Paper Tiger under his ownership in 2015.
Carey said the history project is an opportunity to preserve the past of a neighborhood that is particularly special to many people.
“[The Strip] is a physical environment with things and places that are important to us,” Carey said. “We all have memories of seeing a specific band or drinking in a club, meeting your friends at a bar, meeting your future spouse at a bar. These places are the backdrop for our lives.”
Schnur said the Strip is more than an entertainment district.
“While the music venues got me interested in this, I want to see beyond that,” she said. “By putting all these perspectives together, we’ll get a fuller picture of the neighborhood.”
Find more information about the project, including how to attend the next gathering, on the St. Mary’s History Project website.