A smattering of visitors cast long shadows amid the illuminated exhibits at the Institute of Texan Cultures (ITC) on Thursday morning as four docents prepared for what was expected to be the final school field trip to the museum.
But the busload of students from Crystal City never arrived, leaving volunteers and staff mostly alone at their posts on the eve of the museum’s permanent closure to the public on Friday.
The last field trips in the waning days of both the school year and the ITC had come and gone. And some of the two dozen other visitors to the museum on one of its final days came to reminisce as much as to learn.
“The past several Thursdays have been quite hopping down here, very boisterous,” said Monica Perales, UTSA associate vice provost of the Institute of Texan Cultures, open since 1973.
Prior to the pandemic, up to 300 children could visit the ITC in a single day. It’s the kind of energy Perales hopes will return when the museum reopens in its temporary space and again when its future permanent home is built.
Long housed in an imposing Brutalist-stye building called the Texas State Exhibits Pavilion at Hemisfair, university officials announced in April that UTSA plans to demolish the structure built for the 1968 World’s Fair, put the property up for sale and use the proceeds to relocate the museum.
UTSA has entered into a memorandum of understanding with the city and 1859 Historic Hotels, owners of the Crockett Hotel, to potentially build a new museum on what is currently a hotel parking lot near Alamo Plaza.
In the meantime, a smaller version of the museum will be relocated in the coming months to about 8,500 square feet in the Frost Tower lobby, where Perales expects field trips could resume in 2025 in a space with greater foot traffic, including tourists.
Changing times
On Thursday, Laura Cuellar arrived at the museum with her brother Mark Johnson, three young nieces and an adult niece who brought along her husband and two daughters.
As children, Cuellar and Johnson made the trip from Cuero in 1968 with their parents to the World’s Fair and the history pavilion. “I actually remember that day that they told me to wear my little cowboy boots,” Cuellar said.
Saying goodbye to the ITC was sad, she said, “but I guess we’re living in changing times. There’s so much of the unexpected that we almost have to expect the unexpected.”
Others aren’t so accepting and want the museum to stay put — and the distinct building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places — to remain intact.
More than 1,300 people have signed an online petition posted May 6 by the Conservation Society of San Antonio.
The Conservation Society has opposed any suggestion of razing the building, noting that it was designed by William M. Peña, “the father of architectural programming.”
The Hemifair structure is the only downtown San Antonio landmark designed by a Mexican-American architect, according to the Conservation Society. And the building’s “not in bad shape for a building of its age,” said Vince Michael, the group’s executive director.
But the future of the site remains unclear. Reports of a “potential downtown revitalization project,” have led to speculation that the site could be used as a new downtown home for the San Antonio Spurs.
“We just want the building to have a chance,” Michael said. “Maybe a developer wants it, maybe the Spurs want it.”
‘Like yesterday’
Field trip or not, it was clearly the end of an era last week for both docents and visitors to the museum.
On Wednesday, UTSA invited all present and past docents of the museum — volunteers who are typically retirees — to a luncheon that was part farewell and part reunion. Around 75 of them attended, according to the university.
“It was so great to hear them tell stories,” Perales said. “They can recall conversations that they’ve had with students and visitors like they were yesterday. Some of these docents have been with us for upwards of 40 years.”
Twenty-five-year docent Betty Kitchens works in the museum’s Texas Fibers & Fabrics exhibit, where she learned to spin wool and cotton and show visitors how to work the loom used by early pioneers.
At 87 years old, Kitchens doesn’t see a future for herself applying those skills at a proposed new museum facility that might open when she’s in her 90s.
“I just feel apprehensive about what’s going to be happening,” Kitchens said. “What will I do on Thursdays?”
Docent and historian Glenn Havel, who has taught visitors about the chuckwagon exhibit for the last 16 years, said the museum provides a unique way of looking at history.
“The kids that come in, whatever their background is, we probably have an exhibit covering that,” he said. “I think there’s a little bit of something here for everybody.”
Havel said he also recognizes that the building is in poor condition. “I hope they can wind up a a good location,” he said. “The one over close to the Alamo, to me, makes the most sense.”
Until then, Havel said he might try his hand as a docent at the Alamo.
3,000 artifacts
Even after the museum’s move, there’s still work to be done, “just in a different way,” said Kandice Howard-Fambro, manager of volunteer services for the ITC and interim supervisor of visitor services.
The temporary museum will give staff the opportunity to test different kinds of exhibits, she said, which could become part of the permanent location, and docents could be needed for that.
Perales added that the docents, 21 at present, also could be asked to help with educational outreach efforts in the community.
On Friday, the ITC hosted an open house for the public to make one last visit and share their favorite memories, posted to a wall along with comments about what they are most excited to see next.
The effort to carefully pack, move and store the museum’s collection of 3,000 artifacts, including a fragile 1898 horse-and-buggy hearse and a Native-made dugout canoe, can begin only after the museum’s treasures have been audited and inventoried and after the museum itself has been photographed and those images are archived. That work is underway.
The physical move will be handled by a company hired by UTSA for its expertise in moving artwork and artifacts, Perales said.
“The beauty of this transition … is going back and truly understanding what are those central objects that are important to telling the story of the people of Texas,” she said.
How the story of the ITC’s original home will be told moving forward is still uncertain, she said.
