I have been interested in the building that now serves as the Pass and ID building at San Antonio International Airport. Is this the original San Antonio airport terminal? What year was it built?
Many of us won’t have noticed this cheerful-looking little building, focused as we are on finding the right place to park, making our flights on time or finding the person we’re meeting. Even when we’re not on airplanes, we fly in and out of the airport, perpetually trying to keep up with changes and construction.
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So it may be news to most readers that you’re asking about the airport’s Badge and ID Office, known mainly to airport employees, at 9623 W. Terminal Drive — on your left as you enter the airport, either from Loop 410 or U.S. 281.
“The short answer is the building was not part of the original terminal,” said Tim O’Krongley, deputy aviation director of planning, design, construction and the New Terminal Program. From his research, it was built in the mid-1960s for use in private aviation concerns, such as a fixed-base operator, providing services such as aircraft fueling, parking and rental; and a flight school.
A rendering of the front of the building in the San Antonio Express, April 12, 1963, shows the same distinctive, swoopy roofline — wings? waves? — that survives today, as planned for the Business AirCraft Corp., or BACC, as an “executive terminal building.”
Charles Steen, whom the Express identifies as “the once-penniless oil prospector who found $12 million worth of uranium in Utah,” bankrolled the building and BACC, a holding company incorporated in 1962 that had taken over two other aviation firms, Alamo Aviation and Howard Aero, the latter previously purchased from business-flight pioneer Dee Howard ( covered here Nov. 6, 2015) by another owner.
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When the boutique terminal opened two years later at what was then 447 W. Terminal Drive, it had some luxe touches to please high-flying customers.
“Generous use of marble on the exterior and throughout the lounge presents a soft, soothing effect,” the Express, May 30, 1965, says of the newly opened facility. The waiting area had vaulted ceilings supported by pillars, and the glass-walled building actually “had two fronts” — one looking out on the parking lot and one with a long view of the airport’s runways. Service areas included a chart room, telephones, restrooms, car rental and “complete weather information,” as well as refueling by Phillips 66, repair and maintenance by in-house technicians, hangar space for storage and the opportunity to check out a new-model aircraft made in San Antonio by BACC.
Steen’s timing, unfortunately, was off. Among other terrible investments, “I was making piston planes for businessmen when jets came in,” the busted ex-millionaire told a Los Angeles Times interviewer, as published in the Express, Nov. 3, 1969. “It was like getting into the buggy-whip business when the Model T came in. I dropped $3.5 million on that one.” BACC entered voluntary bankruptcy July 19, 1966; there was a sale Feb. 8, 1967, of all the equipment on the once-fancy premises.
San Antonio International Airport had been in place for nearly a quarter of a century by the time BACC blew into the neighborhood. With the government doing flight training at Stinson Municipal Airport as of 1941, commercial passenger flight moved the following year to a new airport. While Stinson, south of downtown, was constrained by its surroundings, such as cemeteries ( discussed here Oct. 16, 2016), creeks and highways, the new location in the then-undeveloped wilds of the North Side offered plenty of room to grow.
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The first terminal at San Antonio Municipal (later International) Airport ( discussed here July 7, 2018) looked like a hangar with ticket windows. It had no “executive terminal” swag but was sturdy enough that it’s still in use for general aviation (unscheduled noncommercial and nonmilitary flights), according to transportation historian Hugh Hemphill.
The first airport building that seems more like a terminal as we know it was designed by Ayres & Ayres architects as a more impressive structure, begun in 1951 and completed the next year as a one-story building with a six-story control tower in the center. Paid for by city bonds and federal grants, the $1.2 million building connected with the “old terminal” that had opened just a few years earlier and was sited to accommodate construction of another wing in the future.
If it’s true that an airport is the front door of a community, the new terminal said San Antonio cared about keeping up with its neighbors.
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The solid-looking building had some civic personality, decorated in colored tiles with a Spanish motif throughout, and it was air-conditioned, putting off the moment of climatic reckoning. The “ultramodern” structure was big enough for everything an airport was supposed to have — airline offices and ticket counters, airport administrative offices, the Weather Bureau, Civil Aeronautics Authority — and some frills, such as a flower shop, restaurant and coffee shop.
This was the terminal that showed we’d arrived and apparently it came to stay. “One of our airport leaders believes parts of that building were incorporated into the old Terminal 2 that was replaced with Terminal B,” said airport spokeswoman Erin Rodriguez.
So, yes, it looks as if the airport is always changing and under construction … but below the surface, the more a thing changes, the more it stays the same. This is our airport, and it’s not going anywhere, even when we are.
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