The first P.F. Roberts store in the Baptist Settlement operated from about 1906 to 1922, just south of today’s Hemisfair area downtown.
EDWARD A. ORNELAS, STAFF / SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWSA new historical marker will honor the place where one of San Antonio’s first Black-owned businesses once stood.
The site of the former P.F. Roberts’ grocery store will receive Texas Historic Landmark status in a ceremony Thursday at the Southeast corner of East César E. Chávez Boulevard and Indianola Street.
The University of Texas at San Antonio, which petitioned for the status from the Texas Historical Commission, is partnering with Frost Bank for the ceremony unveiling the historical designation marker.
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Though the business is no longer standing and its address, 301 Victoria St., no longer exists, the historical designation honors the store’s legacy and its founder’s contribution to San Antonio’s African American history, UTSA said in a statement.
P.F. Roberts was a longtime educator, businessman and civil rights leader in San Antonio.
EDWARD A. ORNELAS, STAFF / SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWSThe store, founded by Henry Porter Field “P.F.” Roberts, was one of the few African American-owned businesses in San Antonio in the early 1900s.
Roberts, a son of enslaved people, graduated from Tougaloo College in Mississippi and moved to San Antonio in 1895 to teach at the Norris Wright Cuney School in what was then the Baptist Settlement neighborhood, one of the first places that enslaved people and free Black people were allowed to settle in Bexar County, according to UTSA.
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Roberts was a well-respected business owner, educator and community leader, and was one of the founding members of the NAACP San Antonio Chapter.
Roberts, who worked multiple jobs to make a living, opened the grocery store in 1896 with a $2,000 loan from Thomas Claiborne “T.C” Frost, founder of Frost Bank. From about 1906 to 1922, the store sold meat, groceries, wood, coal, oil and dry goods.
“It was an oasis in the desert” for people of color who weren’t allowed in most stores, Ernest Qadimasil, Roberts’ grandson, told the San Antonio Express-News in 2021.
The store is believed to have been where the median is located on Chávez Boulevard. The building was demolished in the 1960s, the Express-News reported in 2021.
The historical marker unveiling takes place at 1 p.m. Thursday at 610 Indianola St.
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