San Antonio Express newspaper,
Nov. 1, 1933, Wednesday.
TRANSLATIONS OF BEXAR ARCHIVES, DELIVERED TO U. OF T. IN 1899, SCARCELY BEGUN, SAYS REGENTS HEAD.
Some idea of the enormity of the task of classifying, cataloguing and translating the Bexar Archives, delivered to the University of Texas 34 years ago for the purpose by Bexar County Commissioner's Court, is gleaned from a letter received Tuesday by County Judge Frost Woodhull from Beauford H. Jester, president of the board of regents.
Declaring that the board feels there has been no negligence on the part of the university in the work, Jester states that, in addition to classifying and cataloguing the various historical documents in the collection, more than 10,000 pages of translated copy have been made, and "the translation of the collection has hardly begun."
"The documents have been arranged in chronological order, filed in steel cases and housed in a fireproof vault in a fireproof building," the letter states.
"Each document has been listed on a card, showing its date, the name of the writer and of its addressee, and the contents of the document in brief. These calendar, or catalogue, cards are arranged in chronological order and greatly facilitate the labor of using the collection.
"Complete classification and cataloguing of the documents has revealed practically no manuscripts relating to land or land titles. The absence of such documents from the collection is probably explained by the fact that the general land commissioner, under an act of congress passed in 1839 or 1840, collected the archives of all local land offices and concentrated them in the general land office, where there are now some 60 bound volumes of manuscripts dealing with land matters of the Mexican period. Many of these must have been at one time a part of the Archives of the Department of Bexar.
"The board of regents wishes to bespeak the further patience of the commissioner's court. During the past 30 years the university has spent no less than $30,000 on the Bexar Archives. Possibly the expenditure may amount to $45,000.
"The work of classifying and cataloguing the collection was only recently completed. Translation has only begun. The regents intend to prosecute this work as rapidly as possible, considering always the straitened financial resources of the university."
The commissioners' court recently wrote to the regents and asked about the status of the work on the archives, believing that 34 years had been sufficient time for cataloguing and translating the documents, which contain valuable information not available elsewhere regarding the early days in this section. A copy of the translations will be given to Bexar County when the work has been completed.
THE SECOND FLYING COMPANY OF ALAMO DE PARRAS
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