Smith managers told the San Antonio Express-News, May 27, 1995, that the company had outgrown its space and “decided it must go where San Antonio’s growth is.” Smith was one of several dealers to move out of downtown during the decade from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s. Smith Chevrolet stayed on Broadway until 1995, when the dealership moved - at Chevrolet’s corporate behest - from the 5.5-acre site near downtown to a 9-acre location at 13483 Interstate 10 West, near UTSA Boulevard. At the time of his death at age 93, March 24, 1980, his death certificate lists him as president of a “real estate investment company.” and a steward of Laurel Heights Methodist Church. The original Roy Smith always was active in civic life: He served as president of the San Antonio Automobile Trade Association, the local dealers’ organization director of the Bexar County National Bank and Southwest Acceptance Corp. Smith had become president, and his son Roy F. “Pop” Gunn was vice president before leaving to found an automotive dynasty of his own. Smith had entered the business in 1940 and become secretary-treasurer. Smith was then president of Smith Motor Sales his son Roy C. The company stayed on that prestigious street when it relocated again, in 1952 to “Smith Square,” its purpose-built plant at 1221 Broadway that included a showroom, service shop, car lot, meeting hall and gas plant to manufacture acetylene gas for the mechanics’ use. With that move, Smith Chevrolet had made it to “Motor Row,” the string of new-car dealerships close to downtown, where most people worked, and to near North Side suburbs, where many lived. The dealership moved again in 1935 to Broadway at Eighth Street. His company, named Smith Motor Sales, started out in 1922 on Romana Street and moved after a few months to a temporary location on Avenue D while waiting for new quarters to be built at 517-519 Avenue C. Smith, unlike many other auto dealers, would stick with a single brand of new cars. Neal’s company branched out to include Nash cars as well as tires, auto accessories and the area distributorship for petroleum products from the Texas Co. “It sold for $535 delivered.” Six years later, when Chevrolet wanted to open a second agency in San Antonio, “Smith and Neal, close friends in addition to being business partners, agreed that Smith should open the new agency.” “We got our first car, a one-door, two-passenger roadster, in January 1916,” Smith told the Express in 1952. In 1916, he took the first Chevrolet agency in San Antonio - the first in Southwest Texas and one of the first in the nation.

Perhaps influenced by his new young employee, Neal branched out to sell cars, tires and accessories. Smith soon worked his way up to being a hardware buyer and buggy salesman and became manager of the Jack W. Neal, who founded his first company here in 1900, traded in what already was becoming old technology: “shelf and heavy hardware,” plows, farm wagons, horses, mules and cows, says the San Antonio Light and Gazette, May 18, 1909. Neal, who sold hardware and implements at 227 S. Smith’s first job was as bookkeeper and secretary to Jack W.

There, “he devoted himself to the study of shorthand and bookkeeping,” says the San Antonio Express, April 10, 1952. It was named for pioneer car dealer Roy Smith, whose Chevrolet dealership at the time of his death in 1980 was in the 1200 block of Broadway (listed at 1221 Broadway in the 1983 directory).īorn in 1886 in Seguin, Smith moved with his family in 1905 to San Antonio, where he attended Main Avenue High School briefly, then went on to business college. According to research by Beth Standifird, San Antonio Conservation Society librarian, the three-block street first appears in city directories with the Smith name in the early 1980s. Like 12th street, it crosses Avenue A and Avenue B. Formerly named 13th Street, Roy Smith Street on the northern end of downtown parallels 12th Street and connects Broadway with the Museum Reach extension of the River Walk, completed in 2013.

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