Live in King William
The river-bend streets laid out from 1853, where German merchants built after the Civil War, a City historic district since 1968 where every exterior change needs the City's certificate first, with owners in six of ten occupied homes and no published price for the district itself.
King William began as the lower farmland of Mission San Antonio de Valero; its streets were laid out between 1853 and 1859, and after the Civil War it became the residential heart of the city's German business elite. The City designated it a historic district in 1968, and this guide takes that district as its boundary: about 220 acres between the San Antonio River and South St. Mary's Street, where the 2020 census counted 1,525 residents, up from about 1,400 on the same ground in 2010, and owners lived in 62% of the occupied homes. Any exterior work, new building or demolition there needs a certificate of appropriateness from the City's Office of Historic Preservation, and larger cases go to the Historic and Design Review Commission. Zillow's typical values for the two ZIP codes that hold the residents, $168,484 in 78204 and $162,711 in 78210 in August 2026, cover far larger areas and are not a King William price.
Mission farmland, a German merchants' quarter, and since 1968 a district the City reviews house by house
The City of San Antonio's King William historic district (OBJECTID 23 on the Office of Historic Preservation's Historic_Districts layer), about 220 acres, traced against the Census Bureau's road file: César E. Chávez Boulevard (the old Durango Street) on the north; South St. Mary's Street on the east, all the way south to Eagleland Drive; on the south, Eagleland Drive and then a line across the ends of Cedar, Mission, Adams, Wickes and Guenther streets to Barbe Street at the river's bend; and the San Antonio River on the west, with a strip across the river that reaches South Main Avenue between Guenther and Arsenal streets. The City's Mission Trails pages describe the National Register district as lying between the river, César Chávez Boulevard, South St. Mary's and South Alamo streets, and say the local district also takes in the National Register's South Alamo Street-South St. Mary's Street district. The King William Association files a larger area of 295 acres with 1,868 residents; the City's district holds 1,525 of them. All of it is in Bexar County and San Antonio ISD.
King William sits in the bend of the San Antonio River just south of downtown, on what was the lower farmland of Mission San Antonio de Valero. Streets were laid out between 1853 and 1859, King William Street among them, said to be named by Ernst Hermann Altgelt for the King of Prussia, and after the Civil War the Groos, Joske, Kalteyer and Steves families built here. By the 1920s the German families were leaving, and after 1945 many of the houses were cut up into apartments. This guide takes the City's King William historic district as its boundary: about 220 acres between the river and South St. Mary's Street, from César Chávez Boulevard down to Eagleland Drive and Barbe Street, where the 2020 census counted 1,525 residents, up from about 1,400 on the same ground in 2010.
The City's review is the condition of owning here. The City designated King William a historic district in 1968, and the association calls it the oldest district in Texas created by city ordinance. Under the Unified Development Code, a certificate of appropriateness must be issued before a permit for new building, alterations, additions, signs, landscaping, a parking area or demolition. Ordinary repairs in the same material, repainting and like-for-like reroofing can be approved by the Office of Historic Preservation's staff; new construction and additions go to the Historic and Design Review Commission, which meets on the first and third Wednesdays. Demolishing a contributing building starts a 60-day wait before any hearing, with at least one meeting with the neighborhood association.
No price index follows the district's line, and the ZIP figures describe somewhere else. The reference point is in ZIP code 78204, where Zillow's typical value was $168,484 in August 2026, down 3.8% on the year; 71% of the residents are in 78210, at $162,711. Both ZIPs run far beyond these streets, and neither is a price for a restored house on King William Street; this guide found no published median for the district. The seven taxing units on a San Antonio ISD address add to 2.440474 per $100 for 2025, worked out here from Bexar County's official rate table: a homestead valued at the 78204 figure owes about $2,051 a year, the same house without the exemption about $4,112, and a homestead at Bexar County's $280,999 median sale price about $4,544. The arithmetic is on the San Antonio page.
The river is the flood line on the map, and not the only one. FEMA's effective map, from 2010 here, puts 2.5% of the district in the 1% annual chance zone, with no census block's center inside it. Flash flooding and closed low-water crossings reach well beyond the mapped zone, above all in late spring and autumn. The City's Class 6 rating takes 20% off a flood policy inside the zone and 10% outside it.
The bus is on the edge. VIA's Route 34 runs along South St. Mary's Street with four stops inside the line, about every 20 minutes at midday. VIA plans to open its Rapid Green Line in 2028, from near the airport through downtown to Brooks, and the Lavaca Neighborhood Association says it will run on South St. Mary's, in its own lane north of Carolina Street except in front of Bonham Academy.
- Look up the address on the City's historic district and landmark maps before you offer
- Book the King William Association's Architectural Advisory Committee, free, before you go to the Office of Historic Preservation
- Get the flood zone for the exact lot and a flood insurance quote, in or out of the mapped zone
- File for the homestead exemption with the Bexar Appraisal District once you live there
- Confirm the zoned schools with San Antonio ISD's enrollment office, because its public map is from 2021-22
How King William got here
- 1793Mission San Antonio de Valero is secularized, and its lower farmland, the labor de abajo, is divided into equal tracts for fourteen Indian families; that land becomes the southern part of the district.
- 1853Streets are laid out between the river and Alamo Street from 1853 to 1859, King William Street among them, said to be named by Ernst Hermann Altgelt for Wilhelm I, King of Prussia.
- 1859The United States Arsenal is established on the river's bank, and Carl Hilmar Guenther builds the house that is one of the oldest in the neighborhood.
- 1873A few houses stand on Cedar, Alamo, St. Mary's and Pereida streets; building moves south, and by 1902 Adams, Wickes and Guenther streets reach Barbe Street.
- 1910sDuring the First World War, with anti-German feeling high, King William Street is renamed Pershing Avenue; the old name comes back after the war.
- 1920sThe original German families begin to move away; after the Second World War many houses fall into disrepair and are divided into apartments.
- 1967The King William Association is chartered as a nonprofit to preserve the neighborhood.
- 1968The City designates King William a historic district, and the association holds its first King William Fair, a one-block arts exhibit.
- 1972On 20 January the King William Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, on a slightly different footprint from the City's.
- 1985H-E-B buys the Arsenal complex, rehabilitates its buildings and moves its corporate headquarters there from Corpus Christi.
- 2010The census counts about 1,400 residents on the blocks inside today's district line.
- 2020The census counts 1,525 residents and 900 homes inside the line; owners live in 458 of the 737 occupied homes.
- 2026VIA says its Rapid Green Line, from near the airport through downtown to the Brooks Transit Center, is planned to open in 2028; the Lavaca Neighborhood Association says it will run along South St. Mary's Street, the district's eastern edge.
- 2027The King William Fair is set for Saturday 24 April, the last Saturday of Fiesta.
A small park inside, and a trail to the missions at the door
Inside the line, King William Park by the river keeps a bandstand first built in 1892 on the Arsenal grounds and later moved there. Downstream, the Mission Reach, about ten miles of trail beside the water, runs past Roosevelt Park and its City pool to the four missions of the national historical park. Northeast across César Chávez Boulevard, Hemisfair's Yanaguana Garden and Civic Park are open from 5 a.m. to midnight.
What the map does not show: shade and water. The National Park Service warns that little of the Mission Reach is shaded, on a normal that brings about 122 days a year reaching 32 °C, and the trail can close when the river rises.
21 places, with real drive times
Road-adjusted distance and drive time from the centre of the community to each destination, nearest first. Filter by category.
Showing 1–12 of 21 places, nearest first.
Method: distances are straight lines from OpenStreetMap's King William place node multiplied by a road factor, with a tiered speed model for the drive: honest ranges, not routed times.
Every gym within reach
The nearest City pool is at Roosevelt Park downstream, and the nearest YMCA is the Harvey E. Najim Family YMCA on Roosevelt Avenue on the South Side.
- Roosevelt Park Pool: about 2.0 km, seasonal
- Harvey E. Najim Family YMCA: about 7.0 km, from 6 a.m. Monday to Thursday
- Mission Reach trail: about 0.5 km, free
| Facility | What it is | Drive |
|---|---|---|
| Roosevelt Park Pool open | The City's nearest public pool, at 331 Roosevelt Avenue downstream; the City's 2026 pools layer read 'closed for season' on 30 September. | 5–7 min |
| Harvey E. Najim Family YMCA open | The nearest YMCA of Greater San Antonio branch, at 3122 Roosevelt Avenue on the South Side, open 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Thursday. | 11–16 min |
| Mission Reach Hike and Bike Trail open | The free option: the trail along the San Antonio River runs about ten miles from the Alamo past all four missions, with B-cycle stations at each mission. The National Park Service warns that little of it is shaded and that it may close for high water. | 2–4 min |
The free option is the Mission Reach trail along the river.
One K-8 campus inside the line, on a map the district last published for 2021-22
Every block is in the San Antonio Independent School District. On its 2021-22 attendance map, the most recent it publishes, the whole district is zoned to Bonham Academy on South St. Mary's Street, a K-8 campus inside the line rated C (77) for 2026, and to Brackenridge High School on Eagleland Drive, just south, rated A (90) for 2026 after B (83) for 2025.
| School | Board | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Bonham Academy | San Antonio Independent School District | 925 South St. Mary's Street, inside the district, listed for kindergarten to grade 8 on the map described here. On San Antonio ISD's 2021-22 attendance map, the most recent it publishes, every block in the district is zoned to Bonham, and the map has no separate middle-school zone here, so Bonham covers the middle grades as well. The Texas Education Agency rated it C, 77, for 2026 and C, 72, for 2025; 66% of its students counted as economically disadvantaged. The district has closed and merged campuses since that map was drawn, so confirm the assignment for your address with the district's enrollment office. |
| Brackenridge High School | San Antonio Independent School District | 400 Eagleland Drive, just south of the district. The zoned high school for every block on the 2021-22 map. Rated A, 90, for 2026 and B, 83, for 2025, with a graduation rate component of 95.8; 84% of its students counted as economically disadvantaged. As with Bonham, the 2021-22 zone is not presented as current. |
Treat those zones as a starting point. San Antonio ISD has closed and merged campuses since that map was drawn, so confirm the assignment for the exact address with the district's enrollment office.
Month by month, what living here looks like
Not a highlights reel: the actual annual rhythm, including the dates residents have to remember.
- The Bexar Appraisal District values every property as of 1 January; last year's bill is due by 31 January
- Highs near 17 °C and lows near 5 °C at San Antonio International, with about five nights at or below freezing on the 1991 to 2020 normal
- Penalty and interest start on unpaid property tax bills on 1 February
- Highs near 20 °C and 44 mm of rain, the driest month on the normal
- Highs near 23 °C and lows near 11 °C
- 59 mm of rain on the normal and about one night at or below freezing
- Fiesta San Antonio runs from 15 to 25 April 2027
- The King William Fair fills the district on Saturday 24 April 2027, the last Saturday of Fiesta week
- Highs near 27 °C and 61 mm of rain
- 15 May, or 30 days after the appraisal district mails its notice if that is later, is the deadline to protest a value; the review board begins hearings around then
- 112 mm of rain, the wettest month on the normal and the start of the late-spring flash flood season
- About 12 days reaching 32 °C (90 °F)
- Highs near 34 °C and lows near 23 °C
- About 24 days reaching 32 °C and 83 mm of rain on the normal
- Highs near 35 °C, with about 29 days reaching 32 °C and about six reaching 38 °C (100 °F) on the normal
- 61 mm of rain
- Highs near 36 °C, the hottest month on the normal, with about nine days reaching 38 °C
- 55 mm of rain
- 99 mm of rain, the second wettest month on the normal, as the autumn flash flood season begins; 2.5% of the district lies in FEMA's 1% annual chance zone, and flooding reaches beyond it
- Highs near 32 °C, with about 20 days still reaching 32 °C on the normal
- Muertos Fest fills Hemisfair, across César Chávez Boulevard, from 23 to 25 October 2026, with more than 80 altars and free entry
- 95 mm of rain and highs near 28 °C
- The 45th Ford Holiday River Parade is on the River Walk downtown on 27 November 2026, with a free viewing area on the east bank between Pecan Street and Richmond Avenue
- Highs near 22 °C and lows near 10 °C
- Highs near 18 °C and lows near 6 °C, with about four nights at or below freezing on the normal
- 51 mm of rain; the bill for the year is due by 31 January
2 more photographs of the community and its surroundings
All freely licensed, via Wikimedia Commons. Filter by category.
Showing 1–2 of 2 photographs.
About these photographs. Openly licensed images geotagged in or near King William, found on Wikimedia Commons and served from there with full attribution. Inline photos elsewhere on the page may still come from the site's shared San Antonio library.