South Austin Street Renamed To Correctly Honor Tejano Soldier

AUSTIN, TEXAS — It's the typo heard 'round the world. Or at least throughout Austin anyway.

Austin City Council members on Thursday voted to rename Manchaca Road — a street honoring a Tejano army officer José Antonio Menchaca who fought in the battle of San Jacinto during the Texas Revolution — to the correctly spelled Menchaca Road.

The vote on the matter was 8-1-1-1, with council member Ann Kitchen against the measure. Her fellow council members on the dais, Leslie Pool and Ellen Troxclair, were absent for the vote. Given the action, streets signs will be replaced with the one-letter correction in what amounted to a years-long culmination of efforts by name-change advocates to have the edit made to honor the man for whom the street is named.

But not everybody was happy about the decision. While most supported the move, some business owners objected to it given the expense of having the change made to reflect their locations along the eight-mile artery. One person speaking against the change said the spelling change would cost his business close to $50,000.

Some objecting to the move got creative in decrying it, arguing that the misspelled Manchaca actually was named for a Coctaw or Lousiana bayou, not the Tejano hero. Yet the man for whom most believe the street is named is said to have camped south of Austin in what would later be known as Manchaca Springs. As it happens, the street is located in South Austin, giving added credence to the belief the Tejano is the rightful namesake.

According to the Texas State Historical Association, the Centennial Commission in 1936 erected a marker at Menchaca's grave at San Fernando Cemetery No. 1 in San Antonio. "It has been asserted by residents of the town of Manchaca in Travis County that their village was named for the nearby Manchaca Springs, which were named for Jose Antonio Menchaca."

Menchaca was born in 1800 and died in 1879.

Despite the sign changes, pronunciation of the surname will likely continue to be uttered as "man-chac" in the local vernacular, which isn't even close to the correct "men-cha-caw." But this, as they say, is another matter entirely.

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>>> Image: The surrender of Santa Anna after the battle of San Jacinto, April 22, 1836 via the New York Public Library Digital Collections, public domain