New park to honor patriot of Texas rebellion
As the San Antonio Water System moves to sell property in a remote but fast-growing part of Bexar County, increasing development could threaten the grave of a spy in the Texas Revolution.
Retired city archaeologist Kay Hindes has been worried for years about the cemetery on the Straus Medina Ranch property, where Hendrick Arnold — a biracial African American — and eight family members are buried.
SAWS and Bexar County officials hosted a 2021 ceremony when the burial ground was dedicated as a Historic Texas Cemetery recognized by the Texas Historical Commission. But the designation is honorary and does not necessarily ensure protection under state laws, Hindes said.
“There can be laws on the books, but sometimes those laws aren’t followed,” said Hindes, the city’s archaeologist for 16 years before she retired in 2019.
SAWS promises the ceme
tery located on the banks of Medina River in southwestern Bexar County will be protected.
The water system is putting the property up for sale again after home-building giant LGI Homes withdrew from contract negotiations.
“We are requiring that 40 percent of the property is set aside as a natural area. This would include the cemetery,” reads a statement from SAWS. “In negotiations with LGI, the intent was to transfer the natural area to SARA, but that would need to be negotiated with the new purchasers.”
The San Antonio River Authority intends to develop a nature park about a mile west of the site to honor the historical figure.
SAWS sold the park site to the river authority but still owns the cemetery and surrounding land that was part of the Straus Medina Ranch.
Plans for Hendrick Arnold Nature Park include hiking and equestrian trails, a butterfly garden, fishing area, bird watching station, campground, and restored wetlands and prairie grass areas.
Arnold was a guide for Texian forces who gained control of San Antonio and the Alamo in the December 1835 Battle of Béjar and a spy at San Jacinto, where the Texans won independence after capturing Mexican Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna. For his service, he was given ranch land on the Medina. He died of cholera at age 45, a few years after Texas was annexed into the U.S.
The ranch land was bought around 1920 by W.T. Montgomery, who kept Hereford cattle, then purchased in 1945 by Joseph Straus Sr. The Straus family raised thoroughbred horses there and sold 1,000 acres of the ranch to the Bexar Metropolitan Water District about 20 years ago.
SAWS acquired 410 acres in 2012, assuming ownership of the water district’s assets after voters approved a measure to dissolve Bexar Met.
SAWS sold 327 acres in 2019,
including 85 acres the river authority purchased for $370,000, based on an independent appraisal with a “park use only” deed restriction.
Kristen Hansen, a senior manager at SARA, said the river authority is being very intentional in connecting the park to Arnold’s legacy.
“That’s another reason we decided to maybe look at equestrian trails because it was such a common theme of that property for so many years,” Hansen said.
At its Nov. 16 meeting, the river authority’s board approved a plan to open the park site to the public late next year in a mostly natural state with few amenities.
Preservation of historic African American cemeteries has been a concern across the country — including Texas. In 2018, the remains of 95 burials, tied to the state’s notorious convictleasing system dating to the late-1800s, were discovered at a Fort Bend Independent School District construction site near Houston. Officials have since been working on ways to memorialize the “Sugar Land 95.”
Hindes, the archaeologist, said she’s also worried about soil erosion along the Medina, which flows southeast to the San Antonio River. In the 1980s, she interviewed residents who spoke of bones being washed down the Medina during heavy storms.
“They would tell me stories about those graves eroding along that bluff line,” she said.
Since Arnold Cemetery is in San Antonio’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, the city can require archaeological surveys for applications for master developcounty ment plans for subdivisions or utility districts. Hindes said the small rectangular cemetery, enclosed with a 4-foot wrought iron fence, should be protected by a larger perimeter fence. She’s hopeful SAWS will be good stewards of the cemetery and is encouraged that the water system plans to have deed restrictions on any sale.
“It’s an extremely significant cemetery. You’ve got a very important early Texan buried there,” Hindes said. “It so desperately needs to be preserved.”
Details of a buffer would have to be negotiated as part of a sale of the land.
“SAWS is committed to ensuring that whoever develops the land will set aside this area from development,” the utility stated.
Derek Boese, SARA’S general manager, said the agency is interested in assuming responsibility for the cemetery, which includes a circa-1936 Texas Centennial historical marker honoring Arnold and making it available for the public to see from a distance.
It now is difficult to access behind a series of locked gates on private property. SARA has about $1 million in its annual budget for park development and could open the park in a “bare minimum state” with trails and signage as early as next year, he said.
SAWS said there are no details on plans for a publicly accessible link between the cemetery and the park. Hindes believes a natural path or a paved hike-and-bike trail extension of the local greenway system “would be a perfect solution,” making the Texas patriot’s grave visible to the public while protecting it from potential vandalism.
“It would benefit everyone. It would tie the park to the actual person that the park is named after,” she said.
Boese said he’s confident the cemetery will be preserved in a way that honors the park’s namesake.
“Between us and SAWS, we could find a way to make that site accessible and celebrate it properly,” he said.