The Socialite of Cherry Street
by Benjamin Nolan
It’s the 1950s, are walking down East Commerce Street on the east side of San Antonio. It is Sunday night, and you are dressed up along with your family, you see others walking down all convening at the same location. You turn onto North Cherry Street and see the two-story building. As you get closer, you hear the sound of jazz music playing loudly on a jukebox. The sounds of drowned out chatter and laughter can be heard as you enter the building. A beautiful winding staircase catches your eye, and then you notice the serval antique furniture encompassing the room.[1] Although the space is small, several couples are up and dancing to the smooth jazz playing in the background.[2] A few railway workers are still in their work uniform, eating some freshly cooked chitlins. The owner, Mrs. Rachel Mason, is laughing and telling stories about the famous Black celebrity guests who just recently stayed at her hotel.[3] This was a typical scene at the Mason, a local hotel on the east side of San Antonio.
San Antonio’s Black community during the Jim Crow era was predominately located on the east side of the city. Local businesses were created to help cater to the need of the people within their community. However, the history of these businesses and their owners often go untold. Black businesses have left a significant impact on the people throughout the community. Rachel Mason and the Mason Hotel are one of these businesses that have left an impact on those around them.
To understand why these businesses were so important to the community, one must first understand what life was like for African Americans during segregation. The Jim Crow era is defined as the time when laws required public schools to be segregated by race and that most public places including trains and buses have separate and unequal facilities for whites and Blacks.[4] Restaurants, hotels, schools, and even housing were segregated between whites and Blacks. Hotels and restaurants specifically would be white only, not allowing for Black people to use their facilities.
Knowledge of where Black Americans were allowed to stay was pivotal information during their travels. The Green Book was one of many travel guides to help African Americans determine safe places to travel and visit during their stays in various cities and towns across the United States. Essential to find communities that were welcoming, The Green Book was “a guidebook once used by African Americans to find hotels, restaurants, and other accommodations that served Black Travelers.”[5]
Like other Southern towns, San Antonio practiced segregation during the Jim Crow era based on laws instituted by the states and local governments. Some laws include the segregation of schools, separate facilities used at state parks, and a Statute made it unlawful for person of Caucasian blood to marry person of African blood.”[6] According to an interviews Dr. Charles Hunt conducted with Reverend Claude Black, African Americans were not allowed to eat at restaurants downtown except those that worked there and usually off in a separate room.[7]
Just like other cities during the Jim Crow era, San Antonio had an African American community to help withstand the effects of segregation. San Antonio’s African American community was located on the east side, near downtown. The community encompasses many different historical districts, such as the Dignowity Hill district, Ellis Alley, and the St. Paul Square. This community became the center of many Black owned businesses. Many of these businesses were included in the Green Book to help guide travelers while visiting.
African Americans often pulled their resources together to provide better facilities for members of their communities. Charles Bellinger, a local businessman and political leader for Black San Antonians “was able to get city officials to provide their community with schools, parks, a library and an auditorium, paved streets, and sewers” during his involvement in local politics.[8] Samuel J. Sutton settled on the east side and started a family with his wife, Lillian V. Smith. They would host many prominent Black figures, such as Frederick Douglass, Thurgood Marshall, and George Washington Carver during the early 1900s.[9] Samuel went on to teach at the city’s first Black high school. With their twelve children, the Suttons became not only an influential family within San Antonio, but a few attained nationwide renown. Their youngest son Percy, for example, became the attorney for Malcom X during his historic trials.
Inspired by the examples of the Suttons and Bellingers, other families created businesses to help combat segregation. Hotels in particular met the desire of creating safe places for Black travelers and were also lucrative, “Not being allowed to stay in White hotels and motels produced a market need for Black-owned and operated hotels. Black entrepreneurs opened a number of hotels and motels to serve the Black community and visitors to the city.”[10] Many of these hotels hosted various Black celebrities and personalities throughout their years. Musicians such as, Ray Charles, Ike and Tina Turner, Fats Domino, and Curley Mays would all stay at these local hotels such as, the Manhattan Hotel and the Deluxe Hotel.
These hotels created a stark contrast to the major white-only hotels during this time. Musicians like pianist June Parker would note that “she and the band encountered very little racial intermingling and usually had to find lodging in segregated hotels, at times with all band members sharing one bed.”[11] African Americans were allowed to perform service labor work, such as bellhops and busboys, but under no circumstances would they be allowed to stay in the rooms overnight. One of the more historic hotels within San Antonio, the Menger Hotel, had “created a Black ‘minstrel’ show featuring their African American employees.” A cake was awarded to the best performance given “‘in real backwoods Negro dialect.’”[12]
One of the much-needed hotels serving the Black community in and through San Antonio was the Mason Hotel. The Mason Hotel was created in the 1930s by a man named Elton Mason. Elton went on to serve in the military during World War II and once he came back, he began to work for American Airlines where he became a redcap, a serviceman who would help customers locate areas in the airport. Mr. Mason, however, did not have much involvement in the Mason Hotel, as he would often have other jobs during its time of operation.[13] The hotel was, in fact, mainly operated and managed by his then wife, Mrs. Rachel Mason. Rachel Mason was born in Muldoon, Texas to Mr. and Mrs. Edward Bratcher Sr. She moved to San Antonio early on in her childhood and eventually married Mr. Elton Mason. Rachel and Elton divorced in the mid-1940s, leaving Rachel in control and owner of the Mason Hotel.[14]
The Mason Hotel was located on 126 N. Cherry Street on San Antonio’s East Side, within the Dignowity Historic District (Figure 1). The hotel was two-stories and had serval rooms to rent out. Mr. Charles Williams, a well-known barber and museum owner, remembers the hotel was “always clean and neat” and that it had a “winding staircase and eloquent antique furniture” within. During the late 1940s, the hotel was co-owned by Rachel Mason and a woman named Lillian Burleson. Rachel would manage the hotel while Lillian would handle the liquor store ran out of the hotel. Eventually, the two split their businesses, with Lilian opening Burleson’s Liquor Store in various places on the east side. According to Mrs. Spriggs-Hill, Lillian Burleson was one of the first people to open several businesses around the community.[15]
Photo courtesy of SanAntonio.gov
The hotel itself had a variety of uses throughout its time. In addition to being a hotel and liquor store, the Mason Hotel operated as a café, sandwich shop, and a meeting place for the locals to use. Companies such as Davis Business Service Bureau would use the Mason Hotel to provide several business services, such as letter-writing, bookkeeping and help with tax returns, for those who ran local businesses (Figure 2). Mrs. Gladys Dixon, though an email conversation with D. L. Grant, a local San Antonio librarian, said that the hotel also served as a beauty shop for the local women in the community. Mrs. Lou Nelle Sutton created the beauty shop with Rachel Mason where they put many different contestants in beauty pageants. Mrs. Lou Nelle Sutton would eventually leave the beauty shop to follow her late husband, Mr. G. J. Sutton, into politics.[16] Both Rachel Mason and Lillian Burleson were successful Black women who owned their own business to help their community.
Photo courtesy of San Antonio Register, Vol. 16, No. 52, Ed. 1 Friday, January 10, 1947, Page: 6
Many people stayed at the Mason Hotel during their time. Rooms were rented out weekly by different patrons. According to Rachel’s niece, Mrs. Barbara Spriggs-Hill, rooms would be rented out to “baseball players, and singers, and musicians” and “a variety of what we would consider Black stars at the time.”[17] Both Mr. Williams and Mrs. Spriggs-Hill remember these stars staying at the hotel but could not remember the specifics. Among the other guests were railway workers who would stay at the hotel after their long shifts at the nearby railroad station, as well as visitors traveling to and through San Antonio.[18]
The various guests that would frequent the Mason Hotel were always greeted by Rachel herself. She was described as a “free spirit” and a “socialite” by those who knew her. Mrs. Spriggs-Hill said early on, money was “flowing” for Mrs. Mason. She would enjoy having and spending the well-earned money she had, occasionally buying lavish items such as a Cadillac to express herself. Apart from the hotel, she was a member of various community organizations. “You name something, and she was on it” Mrs. Barbara Spriggs-Hill said. Rachel was a part of a social group called the Utopia Club, involved in various cancer support organizations (Figure 3), and was a member of the Bowden Chapter Business and Professional Women where she was awarded woman of the year in 1986.[19] She was parliamentarian for the Conservation Society and on the board for a local art museum.[20]
Photo courtesy of San Antonio Register, Vol. 36, No. 4, Ed. 1 Friday, March 24, 1967, Page: 9
Rachel would have people over to the Mason Hotel restaurant on Sundays where her guests were treated to her well-known “soul food” as Mrs. Spriggs-Hill would describe it. There, they would listen to the jazz music being played, whether on the jukebox within the hotel or the musician that was staying there at the time.[21] To describe the Mason Hotel as simply a hotel would be doing it a disservice, it served as a place for members of the community to enjoy and socialize with one another.
Rachel and the Mason Hotel unfortunately fell on hard times near the end of its lifespan in the late 1960s. The hotel portion of the business began to rent out rooms for longer periods of time and at a slower rate. This slow down was one of the many unfortunate side effects of integration for small community hotels. Mrs. Barbara Spriggs-Hill said that once “people had the ability to stay at other places” Mrs. Mason changed rates to more extended stays versus short term “toward the end of the life of the hotel.” The hotel closed in the beginning of the 1970s when the property was sold. The building itself suffered an unfortunate fate in 2008, when it was demolished by American SC Demolition against a local developmental code. The code stated it needed to be reviewed by the San Antonio preservation society to determine its historic integrity and if the land should be preserved. The building was bulldozed before this assessment was ever to take place. With the structure of the hotel erased, the history of its impact and owner were nearly lost.
Mrs. Mason’s legacy was more than just the hotel building. She inspired those around her to join the many clubs and organizations she was a part of. Her lasting impact on her family remains to this day. “She had the biggest influence on me socially” Spriggs-Hill says. She left an impact big and small on the community and her family members. From the social gatherings, multiple clubs she was in, engagement in multiple club memberships, community organizations and city parliamentary boards she was on, to simply teaching her great niece how to play dominos, Rachel left profound mark on those around her.
Local Black owned businesses and their owners like the Mason Hotel and Rachel Mason helped shape the identity of Black San Antonians. They came together during a time of discrimination and segregation and created thriving communities for themselves. Their stories often go untold, but the impact they left behind still carries on to this day.
Works Cited
[1] Charles Williams phone interview with Ben Noland on March 23rd, 2022. In-person interview.
[2] Barbara Spriggs-Hill phone interview with Ben Noland on April 6th, 2022. Phone interview.
[3] Barbara Spriggs-Hill phone interview with Ben Noland on April 6th, 2022. Phone interview.
[4] Hunt, Charles W. 2012. Factors That Affect Succession in African American Family-Owned Businesses, p 24.
[5] Bay, Mia. Traveling Black a Story of Race and Resistance. p 13.
[6] “Jim Crow Laws: Texas, Utah and Vermont Code, Colored, Constitution, Descendant, Felony, Intermarriage, Legislature, Mulatto, Negro, Nurse, Ordinance, Penal Code, Public Transportation, Railroads, Schools, Segregation, Separate but Equal, Slavery, Statute, Supreme Court, Voting, Waiting Rooms,” AmericansAll, https://americansall.org/legacy-story-group/jim-crow-laws-texas-utah-and-vermont.
[7] Hunt, Charles W. 2012. Factors That Affect Succession in African American Family-Owned Businesses, p 24.
[8] Hunt, Charles W. 2012. Factors That Affect Succession in African American Family-Owned Businesses p 25.
[9] Clack, Cary. The remarkable rise of one of Texas’s most accomplished families, https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/remarkable-rise-one-texass-accomplished-families/
[10] Hunt, Charles W. 2012. Factors That Affect Succession in African American Family-Owned Businesses, p 48.
[11] Olsen, Allen O. The Post-World War II “Chitlin’ Circuit” in San Antonio and the Long-Term Effects of Intercultural Congeniality.” (2007).
[12] Hunt, Charles W. 2012. Factors That Affect Succession in African American Family-Owned Businesses, p 25.
[13] Barbara Spriggs-Hill phone interview with Ben Noland on April 6th, 2022. Phone interview.
[14] Barbara Spriggs-Hill phone interview with Ben Noland on April 6th, 2022. Phone interview.
[15] Barbara Spriggs-Hill phone interview with Ben Noland on April 6th, 2022. Phone interview.
[16] D. L. Grant email interview with Ben Noland on March 17th, 2022.
[17] Barbara Spriggs-Hill phone interview with Ben Noland on April 6th, 2022. Phone interview.
[18] Barbara Spriggs-Hill interview with Ben Noland on April 6th, 2022. Phone interview. Charles Williams in-person interview with Ben Noland on March 23rd, 2022.
[19] San Antonio Register (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 56, No. 30, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 29, 1987
[20] Barbara Spriggs-Hill phone interview with Ben Noland on April 6th, 2022. Phone interview.
[21] Barbara Spriggs-Hill phone interview with Ben Noland on April 6th, 2022. Phone interview.