By Madison Hunt | Staff Writer
Where students now walk to classes and crowds now roar for the home team beneath bright lights, there once stood a vibrant Mexican-American neighborhood called Sandtown.
For decades, families built lives on the ground that today holds students in classrooms and campus streets. Urban renewal and mid-century redevelopment erased the barrio from the map, but its history is still written into the land beneath students’ feet.
Sandtown was a predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood that took shape around the turn of the 20th century and flourished for decades as a cultural and social hub in Waco. City records and local histories describe its footprint as an area roughly between the Brazos River and Third Street, extending across blocks that now lie adjacent to and overlap with parts of Baylor’s campus and the city’s riverfront roadway network.
At its peak during the 1950s, approximately 50 working-class families resided in Sandtown. For many of the community’s families, the neighborhood was the first place they called home in the U.S. after immigrating from Mexico.
One former Sandtown resident is Jesse Serrano. He still recalls his childhood in the barrio.
“I wish that we were still at our neighborhood here, and that I could return to live here because it was an enjoyable place and we did keep it clean in spite of everything — the storms, the sandstorms, for what reason Sandtown was named,” Serrano said.
Sandtown used to be home to several grocery stores, auto garages, barber shops, beer joints, South Third Street Elementary and A.J. Moore High School. Religious and social gathering sites, such as an Assembly of God Sanctuary and “The Blue Moon” nightspot, also made up the town.
Sylvia Hernandez, the Texas Collection’s assistant librarian, noted that many of the buildings in Sandtown still stand today, including what used to be the Reuben Bravo Produce Company, located across I-35.
“On the building, there is still an outline of what used to be a garage door where they would sell chickens, eggs and feed for animals,” Hernandez said. “My dad and mom would come to the Produce Company to buy a sack of feed for the donkeys. This is personal for me because I remember coming to this store growing up and walking around with my family.”
The neighborhood was a haven for minorities during segregation. Many other grocery stores in the neighboring areas wouldn’t sell to black or brown citizens, but Sandtown staples like Flannery’s, the Gamboa Grocery, the Serrano Grocery and Rubie’s did.
Mid-century urban renewal targeted low-income neighborhoods across the U.S. Funded by the federal government, cities throughout the country sought to improve local architecture and expand residential areas by purchasing and decimating pre-existing neighborhoods, a process called “slum clearance.”
The City of Waco launched this project in 1957 in partnership with Baylor University and focused on the renewal of land adjacent to the school’s campus. Eligible voters in June of 1958 consisted of landowners, as 70% of residences in Sandtown were only deemed as “slum renters,” according to the Waco History website.
The Baylor University Project was approved and began construction of residential housing, highways and Baylor’s campus. In addition to the expansion of Baylor, minority groups were still refused entry into the university.
“In the event that this plan should pass and all the people are moved out, I believe you will cause a number of crimes, and I’m a minister,” Waco Rev. J.L. Carter said at the time.
Waco’s urban renewal committee members — including real estate agent Hank L. Corwin, former Mayor Truett Smith, Baylor Trustee Hilton E. Howell and Baylor Executive Vice President Abner McCall — cheered the approval, declaring the decision a victory for Waco.
Though Sandtown is long gone, Serrano said memory is powerful.
“Sandtown did exist,” Serrano said. “Sandtown is still here, and it will always be here in our hearts.”
