Pleasanton

Understand

Name

Pleasanton in Texas was going to be spelled as "Pleasonton" after the military general, but, like Pleasanton in California, it was misspelled, and the spelling has not been changed since. Although the town has far fewer people than the other major city with the same name, its population has grown significantly since 2000: a 2016 estimate put the population at more than 10,000.

History

Pleasanton was established in 1858 when conflicts with the Indians caused the settlers to move the location of the county seat from Amphion. The settlers chose the current town site because of its location at the mouth of Bonita Creek. John Bowen (died 1867), San Antonio's first Anglo-American postmaster, founded and named the town of Pleasanton after his good friend and fellow early Texas Settler John Pleasants.

At one time Pleasanton had two newspapers, the Pleasanton Picayune, which became the Pleasanton Express in 1909, and the Pleasanton Reporter. The county seat was relocated from Pleasanton to Jourdanton in 1910. Pleasanton was incorporated in 1917.

Along with San Antonio, Uvalde, Crystal City, Carrizo Springs, and Corpus Christi, Pleasanton was a major stop on the now-defunct San Antonio, Uvalde and Gulf Railroad, which operated from 1909 until it was merged into the Missouri Pacific Railroad in 1956. The rail headquarters was located in a modern two-story depot in North Pleasanton beginning in 1913. However, headquarters closed in 1926, and later the SAU&G, or the Sausage Line as it was called, was merged into the Missouri Pacific. The headquarters depot has been razed, but an earlier depot in Pleasanton is displayed at the Longhorn Museum. The remaining San Antonio-to-Corpus Christi freight line is under the Union Pacific system.

In November 1957, the citizens of Pleasanton voted overwhelmingly to desegregate the public schools. This came some two months after the crisis at Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. Some three dozen African American pupils were then integrated into the Pleasanton school.

Get in

US Freeway 37 goes past the city. US Route 281 connects Pleasanton, Texas, to San Antonio - one of Texas' largest cities.

Get around

By car

Second Street goes through the center of the city in a north-south direction, and Goodwin Street goes across the city east-west.

Go next

• San Antonio - large city to the north of Pleasanton
• Jourdanton - town to the southwest of Pleasanton