Trueheart NR nomination - not accepted by Texas Historical Commission

NARRATIVE DESCRIPTION


Now addressed at 14984 Blue Wing Road, San Antonio, Texas, near the San Antonio River, in south Bexar County, is the James L. Trueheart House (ca. 1848). Associated with two prominent San Antonio families, the Truehearts and the Goeths, the house was once a two-story, stone block, ranch headquarters built by James Trueheart for his bride, Petra Margarita de la Garza Trueheart. James Lawrence Trueheart (sometimes spelled Truehart) (1815-1882) was a famous Perote prisoner as a result of the 1842 Woll Invasion of Texas. He was also a Texas diarist and the Bexar County clerk during the early 1840s when Texas was first a Republic and then a new state of the United States beginning in 1845. He died in 1882 and upon Margarita Trueheart’s death in 1899, two hundred and seventy-two acres out of the ranch property and the house had to be sold to settle her debts. However, in 1910, the entire ranch property was bought by Conrad Alexander Goeth (1869-1953) who was the head of a family of prominent local attorneys, civic leaders, and philanthropists. The Goeths also had an interest in Texas history and in early methods of historic preservation. In 1924, C.A. Goeth had the ranch house designated as a local Texas landmark with a marker. His son, Fred C. Goeth, also had it documented by HABS drawings in 1936. In 1939, Fred Goeth purchased three acres of ranch property from his father containing the house and then modified the two story, rectangular-shaped building with the addition of wooden-frame wings on either end of the stone residence as well as the retaining the double-height, screened porch that overlooks the original fields, pecan trees, and flood plain of the San Antonio River. Fred Goeth kept the ranch house and its several outbuildings until his death in 1963 when the entire ranch of over 700 acres was sold by the Goeth family. It eventually became known as the Berry Ranch. Thereafter, it was owned by the Bexar County Metropolitan Water District before returning to private ownership and being acquired by its current owner, David Earl. Today, just four historic-age buildings remain on the property, but they are surrounded by a landscape that retains its historic integrity in setting, location, feeling, and association as an important cultural landscape in south San Antonio and in its association with James Trueheart and the Goeth families.  Read More

Trueheart NR nomination - not accepted by Texas Historical Commission