{"id":509857,"date":"2026-01-12T02:42:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T02:42:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/509857\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T02:42:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T02:42:19","slug":"when-the-first-authentic-western-movies-were-shot-in-san-antonio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/509857\/","title":{"rendered":"When the first authentic western movies were shot in San Antonio"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for TPR Today<\/a>, Texas Public Radio’s newsletter that brings our top stories to your inbox each morning.<\/p>\n

At Padre Park on the South Side of San Antonio\u2014along the banks of the San Antonio River and near the Spanish Missions, runners and dog walkers pass by. <\/p>\n

But just over a century ago, this was the location of the first movie set in Texas and one of the earliest places in the country where filmmakers shot the first authentic westerns.<\/p>\n

\"Runners<\/p>\n

Runners along the San Antonio River and Padre Park<\/p>\n

Film historian Kathryn Fuller-Seeley says it was also the first shot in the battle over who would control American filmmaking.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

University of Texas Press<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was one of the earliest attempts to break away from the dominance of New York-based filmmaking,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Fuller-Seeley is a professor of media studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her new book is \u201cThe First Movie Studio in Texas.\u201d<\/a> It was co-authored by Frank Thompson.<\/p>\n

She says in early days of East Coast movie production was rough business. For example, The Thomas Edison Motion Picture Company didn\u2019t want independent filmmakers infringing on patents or making competing films.<\/p>\n

\u201cFilmmakers … tended to send gangsters out to break the cameras of their hated rivals,\u201d Fuller-Seeley said.<\/p>\n

\"Star<\/p>\n

Star Film Ranch San Antonio 1911<\/p>\n

Gaston M\u00e9li\u00e8s, a French businessman, decided to make movies away from the mob. He picked San Antonio as a home base for his Star Film Company, sending a crew of about twenty actors and technicians to rent a ranch south of town.<\/p>\n

And he had a clear strategy. \u201cHe decided what the market needed were authentic westerns, not shot in New Jersey. But in realistic settings. So, he chose San Antonio,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

For about a year and a half, the crews turned out an assembly line of short films \u2014each 15 minutes long \u2014 perfect for the era\u2019s booming appetite for cheap entertainment.<\/p>\n

\"Still<\/p>\n

Still from the 1911 movie The Immortal Alamo, 1911, Star Ranch Films<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the days of the boom of nickel theaters \u2014 a lot like today\u2019s boom in everybody watching YouTube videos and TikToks. The first movies were short. Entrepreneurs opened little theaters in closed shoe stores and some in funeral parlors,\u201d Fuller-Seeley said.<\/p>\n

Inside those makeshift Nickelodeons, the films played silently \u2014 but not quietly. \u201cThey were silent but had usually live piano accompaniment. They weren\u2019t shown in silence.\u201d<\/p>\n

On set, the production was simple\u2014and physically demanding. Everything was shot outdoors. Scenes were staged precisely at noon to avoid heavy shadows. If they needed an \u201cinterior,\u201d they built a stage and hung bed sheets overhead to soften the light.<\/p>\n

\"Edith<\/p>\n

Edith Storey and Francis Ford 1911 The Cowboys and the Bachelor Girls<\/p>\n

The filmmakers also made use of San Antonio\u2019s picturesque locations.<\/p>\n

“They shot a number of scenes along the San Antonio river, around the missions. They shot a few films in the sort of barrio neighborhoods in downtown San Antonio,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The stories leaned hard into action \u2014 fist fights, horse chases, threatened heroines, last-minute rescues. And Fuller-Seeley says the movies often gave women a prominent role. The breakout star was 17-year-old Edith Storey.<\/p>\n

\"Edith<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019d throw herself off cliffs and fall off horse. She\u2019d do anything to make the film more exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Storey won the admiration of the cowboys on set for her riding skills. They said she could ride anything with hair on it. In her lifetime Storey made about 150 films and today she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.<\/p>\n

Another lead performer was Francis Ford, the older brother of John Ford, who would later become one of the most influential directors in American film.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he was good, he could ride and swim, and he was a very good actor, but he also didn’t mind playing villains or fools,\u201d Fuller-Seeley said.<\/p>\n

The troupe even made an early Alamo film \u2014 a 15-minute epic they considered the highlight of their Texas run. The movie itself is lost, though photos and stills remain.<\/p>\n

In their moment, Fuller-Seeley says, audiences loved these Texas-made Westerns\u2014praised for scenery, action, and a sense of authenticity. But the industry moved quickly. By late 1911, the company broke apart, and the films faded from memory\u2014just as filmmakers pushed farther west to Southern California.<\/p>\n

Of the 70 films that Star Ranch produced almost all are lost \u2014 only four remain. In 2010 one film \u201cBilly and His Pal\u201d was discovered in New Zealand.<\/a><\/p>\n

The hope is there are other lost Star Ranch films somewhere waiting to be found.<\/p>\n

Click here to watch <\/b>\u201cBilly and His Pal.\u201d<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for TPR Today, Texas Public Radio’s newsletter that brings our top stories to your inbox each…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":509858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,7202,7203,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-509857","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-san-antonio","10":"tag-sanantonio","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-tx","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115879827619424049","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}