| Gresser Complex
Louis Gresser purchased property with a
small house at the corner of Presa and Nueva Streets from Maria
Concepcion Gonzales y Casas for $1,000 in 1861. The Gressers built
several structures on the property, including a house adjoining the
original Casas House on Presa Street. These two structures appear on
Koch’s 1873 Bird’s Eye View Map of San Antonio.
According to legend, the famous Texas
Ranger, Colonel John Coffee “Jack” Hays, once lived on the property,
which passed from the Gressers to the Foutrels, and finally, to the
Tschirhart family. The San Antonio Conservation Society purchased
this building in the La Villita Historic District from the
Tschirharts in April of 1976 and completed restoration the following
year. The house has four rooms across the front; each room with a
door to the porch.
On April 6, 1998, the Society
purchased the former Alaskan Palace property at 102-106 Navarro
Street from the Tschirhart family. Two buildings appeared on this
site in Koch’s Bird’s Eye View Map of 1873. The main structure was a
house divided in the middle with a small cottage or kitchen to the
rear. The current building façade was built 1940-1945, when the
Deason Radio Company occupied the southern portion of the building.
In 2006, the Society completed rehabilitation work that returned the
exterior of the building to its 1940’s appearance. |
