1851 - Ursuline Academy - San Antonio, TX - Dated Buildings and Cornerstones on Waymarking.com

Ursuline Academy was founded by French Ursuline nuns in 1851, making it the first girls' school in San Antonio. The nuns were sucessful in operating the school because it kept growing, even expanding during and after the Civil War. The eight oldest buildings on the campus are believed to be the largest and maybe the only remaining example of the French "pie de terre", or "rammed earth" style of construction in Texas(1). On one of the old academic buildings, the date 1851 has been incorporated into the cornice above the entrance doorway at the end of the building that faces west toward Augusta Street. The Ursuline Academy closed and sold its property to the San Antonio Conservation Society in 1965. A few years later, in the early 1970's, the SA Conservation Society sold the campus to a new art school that has prospered in this location and is now the Southwest School of Art and Craft. Through the past decades, the art school had managed to get funding for repairing and restoring the old historic buildings and now used them again as part of the school's campus. In 2006, the National Trust for Historic Preservation gave the school the National Honor Award to recognize their efforts in restoring and preserving the buildings (2).

Source references:
(1) (visit link)
(2) (visit link)

Year of construction: 1851 Full inscription: 1851 Cross-listed waymark: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   11/02/2010 WayBetterFinder visited it