San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Reader seeks home for Playland ticket
We have one ticket that we would like to donate to a museum or if a collector is interested. The special admission ticket was for the Alzafar Shrine Easter event. It was a lot of fun. We always looked forward to it. Has the ExpressNews run an article about Playland Park?
Joe Stoeltje
Playland Park amusement park opened in 1940 on cityowned property west of Koehler Park, adjacent to Brackenridge Park near the San Antonio Zoo, originally owned by James E. “Jimmy” Johnson, an entrepreneur from Chicago, and Andrew Rubiola. As noted in a June 24, 2012, column, colorful underworld figure
Adolph “Booby” Obadal later was revealed as a silent partner.
Obadal broke away after a couple of years to operate Victory Park, a separate concern, and with Johnson at the helm, Playland relocated to 2222 N. Alamo St. at Broadway, where it remained until it closed in 1980. Featuring rides, carnival games, miniature golf and theme areas (Haunted Castle, Land of LaffsMother Goose Land), the park was advertised as “America’s cleanest amusement center,” thanks to the teenage employees who picked up litter and its “paper-eating clowns” trash cans.
The park traditionally opened for its spring and summer season on or near St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, and was occasionally closed to the public when it rented the entire premises to a single organization. For some visitors in the park’s early years, however, it was only open once a year. African-American guests were admitted only to celebrate Juneteenth ( June 19), the holiday that commemorates emancipa- tion from slavery in Texas on that date in 1865. The park remained segregated until the mid-1960s.
Your ticket is the kind “used for the admittance of special groups such as the Newspaper Boys Day or Orphan’s Day,” says Ed Gaida, a former Playland employee and author of “Just for Fun! Jimmy Johnson’s Playland Park.” Also a collector of Playland memorabilia, Gaida still owns “about 50 or 60 books of them. They’re only rare if you don’t have one.”
As for a place to donate your ticket, says Gaida, “Sadly, there is no central place where Playland memorabilia can be seen.” There are, however, many Playland-related items, including bumper stickers, postcards, ride tickets and “vintage special tickets” similar to yours posted to sell or trade on eBay.
You can see photos of the park in Express-News online slide shows. All three local dailies — the San Antonio Express, Light and News — covered the park throughout its four-decade run.
Any museum or archive that would be interested in acquiring the reader’s ticket may contact this column.
I went to school at Red Wagon Ranch in 1955-1956 and am hoping you can provide some missing pieces to my life in those years, hopefully with pictures. I am especially interested in one published by Red Wagon Ranch
School that depicted all the activities that were offered at the school. I remember that there were about six or seven students dressed in costumes that represented those activities, such as swimsuit for swimming, artist costume for art, etc. I am particularly interested in this picture because I was the artist depicted.
I have searched all over for it over many years, off and on, but can't seem to get my hands on it. About four years ago, my wife and I spent a whole day going through microfilm of the San Antonio newspapers of those days and came up empty. I can't help but wonder if we just overlooked it.
Any other pictures of the school at that time would be extra for me. I have since gone back (to the school site) and have pictures of the (burnt-out) ruins.
Homero Bolado Jr.
Covered here May 8, 2014, after a similar request for photographs from another former student, Dudley Owens, we didn’t find much, either. As noted at the time, “The Red Wagon School was an independent, proprietary school; as such, it was not affiliated with any school district, religious order or other organization to keep its records.”
Both its locations were outside the city limits. Founded in the early 1950s as the Little Red Wagon School on Huebner Road, with a rural-route address, it moved a few years later to Mountain Top, then 12 miles outside the city on Fredericksburg Road, occupying a former entertainment/hospitality complex.
As the Red Wagon Ranch School and Camp, it was a coeducational day and boarding school, eventually covering preschool through 12th grade. With a large campus that included recreational facilities, the school offered baseball, horseback riding and roping, swimming and diving, tennis, shuffleboard and other sports. In addition to “all the prescribed courses for admission to other schools and colleges,” other offerings advertised included music and art, jewelry making and wood crafts.
There was some newspaper coverage of the school during its run, but usually without photos — stories about awards and sports events — or occasionally with “courtesy photos” supplied by the school that weren’t taken by the papers’ staff photographers and as such, wouldn’t have been kept.
Red Wagon closed at the end of the 1956-1957 school year, a casualty of divorce, debt and some unfortunate decisions.
Anyone who has school photos to share may contact this column. All responses will be forwarded and may be published in a future column. Headquarters history: The U.S. Army Medical Department (AMEDD) Museum at 3898 Stanley Road on Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston will host a book-signing for “The Quadrangle,” a history of Fort Sam’s oldest building by John M. Manguso, at 11:30 a.m. Thursday in the museum auditorium. Manguso, the retired longtime director of the Fort Sam Houston Museum, also will give a presentation about the history of the Quadrangle.
Built in 1876 as a quartermaster supply depot, the limestone structure known for its clock tower and deer-dominated menagerie became a major regional headquarters, and some of the most distinguished military members of its time have served there. The signing and lecture are free and open to the public. Regular access rules apply: For details, call the Visitors Center at 210-221-2650.