Hemisfair '68 and the Transformation of San Antonio

"I know you're caught up in that dusty, damn little ol' town down there," Lee Iacocca told San Antonio businessman Red McCombs in explaining why Ford Motor Company would not have a pavilion at the world's fair San Antonio was planning for 1968. Then McCombs called Texas Governor John Connally, who called President Lyndon Johnson, who called Henry Ford II. Getting the Ford Pavilion opened the way to major industrial participation and assured HemisFair's success. The fair sparked a transformation of San Antonio. A monolithic Old Guard overcame four decades of post-Depression lethargy to put on the event, only to find itself soon overthrown by the new energy. As change rippled outward, rising minority political groups gained a decisive voice in economic development. The political, social and economic upheavals were taking place in a city already reflecting the theme of HemisFair '68: The Confluence of Civilizations in the Americas. In this book, longtime San Antonio news executive Sterlin Holmesly lets business and political leaders, including five former mayors, tell in their own words how the fair abruptly ushered in a new era for San Antonio. More than two dozen key figures from Tom Frost to Henry Cisneros to Red McCombs relate nuts and bolts stories of the building and opening of the fair—such as construction of the signature Tower of the Americas and getting the Ford Pavilion—as well as giving their own inside stories and perspectives on how effects of the fair catapulted San Antonio into the role of a major modern city, with implications for South Texas and the rest of the state as well