History of Buena Vista School in San Antonio, Texas explored.

Buena Vista School was an elementary school once operated by Southside ISD in the city of San Antonio, Texas from 1915 to 1990.

Juan Antonio Chavez owned a 10.153 acre tract of land which Buena Vista School was located on. According to a deed dated October 25, 1909, Juan Antonio Chavez conveyed 10.153 acres of land to Alfred Duesler and Charles Graebner. Sometime during the 1910s is when Charles Graebner sold the land to S. W. Magee. This land was later sold to Southside Rural School District No. 17 during World War I. (Ref: Bexar County Official Public Records - Real Estate, Document No. 99990563318)
 

In 1915, the Espada School from Espada Mission and the hamlet of Buena Vista combined to form the Buena Vista School. Buena Vista School was operated as a schoolhouse in 1915 by Southside Rural School District No. 17 (now Southside Independent School District). Southside Independent School District had always operated Buena Vista School. (Ref: https://www.sanantonio.gov/Portals/0/Files/HistoricPreservation/arc_reports/SouthernBexarCounty-1445Acres.pdf)

Buena Vista School was a two-room school in the beginning. Each room had a wooden stove for heating. Wood for the school was brought in by truck. There was no central heating established inside the school building.

Buena Vista School was a K-12 school which educated students in grades kindergarten to high school. Although Buena Vista School was a K-12 school, Buena Vista School operated primarily as an elementary school catering to students in grades kindergarten through 7.


By 1949, Buena Vista School had absorbed the first and second grades of Carmen School (Carmen Elementary School), Borrego School, and Oakley School, with children in grades above second going to Southside Elementary School and Southside High School. Oakley School directed its students toward Buena Vista Elementary School in 1949. (Ref: https://athenaeum.uiw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1288&context=uiw_etds)

1950 is when Buena Vista School became an elementary school called Buena Vista Elementary School which operated from the 1950s all the way through the 1980s. Buena Vista Elementary School operated as a K-7 school all the way until being shut down by Southside ISD. The room on the right held grades K-3 and the room on the left held grades 4-7.

A four classroom-one lunchroom wing was completed for Buena Vista Elementary School in 1960. The school was listed as being located on FM 1937.


In 1986, the principal of the Buena Vista Elementary School in San Antonio led a campaign to rename the school for Torribio Losoya, one of seven Mexican-Texans who died defending the Alamo in 1836 against the Mexican army of Santa Anna. (Ref: The American Kaleidoscope: Race, Ethnicity, and the Civic Culture, Lawrence H. Fuchs)

Buena Vista School was demolished in 1995 and was leveled in 1996. Only the concrete slabs of the old school buildings remained after demolition. 

Southside Independent School District sold the land property to Loren G. Adcock on an unrecorded deed dated December 11, 2002. The land was split into two tracts. Tract 1 is where a mobile home was parked over the concrete slab of where the school building used to be. Loren G. Adcock owns the land today. (Ref: Bexar County Official Public Records - Real Estate, Document No. 20070003014)

Buena Vista School was located at 14850 South Flores Road, San Antonio, Texas, US 78221. Their alternate address was 14727 FM 1937, San Antonio, Texas, US 78221.