Second Saturday Westside Convivio @ Rinconcito

This meeting’s focus will center on a small neighborhood of the Westside that was once known as Laredito as well as Esperanza’s effort to preserve the historic structure at 836 Laredo St.. As always, come prepared with your memories, stories, and food as we remember and imagine ways to preserve this beautiful building that is one of the last standing structures of this once vibrant community.

More on Esperanza’s preservation work for 836 Laredo:

836 S Laredo is a 130 year old Victorian style home built in the 1890s and is located in the historic “Laredito” neighborhood. Guadalupe Rodriguez Sr., a farmer born in Mexico in 1867, fled Pancho Villa’s revolution in 1912 and came to San Antonio. He started a plant that bottled Iron Beer, King-Kola and the other popular soda drinks of that era. He purchased the Walter House around the year 1918 and built the factory behind it. He and his son Guadalupe Rodriguez Jr. ran Rodriguez bottling. In 1924 Guadalupe Jr. married Herlinda Morales . After the untimely death of her husband Guadalupe Jr , Herlinda Morales Rodriguez took over the business and renamed it Dragon Bottling Co. She became one of the first successful widows, taking over the family’s bottling company in the 1930s and becoming a pioneering figure in freight logistics and one of the first successful Latina business women of the Southwest. Her legacy as a freight logistics pioneer is one that made Dragon Bottling one of the most prosperous businesses owned by a Mexican American in the state by 1939.