Make sure Roy Guerrero is remembered not just as a park

A reader asks Austin Found: “Who was Roy Guerrero?”

The reader refers to the namesake for the 363-acre Roy G. Guerrero Colorado River Metro Park, one of the city’s largest expanses of green, accessed primarily from South Pleasant Valley Road to the west or Grove Boulevard to the south.

The short answer: Raul "Roy" Guerrero was a longtime advocate of recreation for East Austin youths and a decades-long employee of Austin Parks and Recreation who retired as deputy director in 1981 and died in 2001 at age 82.

The medium answer: Guerrero was known in the 1940s for his work integrating Little League baseball games in Austin and for his participation with the League of United Latin-American Citizens and other civic groups; in the 1950s as the director of the Pan American Recreation Center at 2100 E. Third St., which he called the “hub of the community”; in 1960s as superintendent of recreation for the city of Austin; and in the 1970s as the second in command at the parks department.

He was present when Colorado River Park was dedicated in his name in August 2001.

As his obituary states, “Guerrero was the son of a Presbyterian minister and a social worker. He worked his way through the University of Texas, starting with a part-time job as an activity leader at what was then known as La Comal community center at East Third and Comal streets.”

In the days before John Treviño became the city of Austin’s first Hispanic elected official, some dubbed Guerrero the "unofficial City Council member for the east side."

"He was a great man," former Austin Mayor Gus Garcia said when Guerrero died three months later. "Men like that come along once in a long while."

One should add that Guerrero had countless friends and admirers, as well as siblings, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, many who remember him personally. Their collected stories would make a fine candidate for another Austin Found column.

Looking back through newspaper archives, however, it’s interesting to see that media placement for the name Roy Guerrero went through three distinct phases.

First, during the 1950s, when Guerrero ran the Pan American Center, sometimes in tandem with Oswaldo A.B. Cantu, after which the 1940 center is now named, Guerrero appeared in the paper almost weekly. “Mr. G,” as he was nicknamed by neighborhood kids, was ubiquitous, announcing athletic contests, holiday fiestas, boxing matches or social affairs.

In December 1954, for instance, he put out word for a benefit dance at the City Coliseum, completed in 1949 on the south shore of the river, to raise money for a Christmas party for “Latin American children.” The party tradition was in its fourth year, and the previous December some 2,700 children had attended the event. The Carmona Orchestra played the benefit dance, which cost $1 for men and 50 cents for women.

After Guerrero rose to superintendent of recreation in 1964, however, his name appeared in the newspaper less often. Elevated into the relatively upper echelons of city hierarchy and respected far and wide for his expertise, he was no longer associated with every activity at the Pan American Center, then supervised by Manuel Garza, or other East Austin events.

He almost seems to have faded from the spotlight.

Occasionally, his name pops up, such as it did on July 12, 1969, when he reminded readers that school gyms were open for recreation during summer months.

After his retirement, Guerrero was certainly remembered and publicly honored by his colleagues. In 1988, his name, along with Onie B. Conley’s, was attached to the Conley-Guerrero Senior Activity Center on Nile Street not far from Rosewood Park in East Austin.

During the 1998 city bond election, his name was invoked when campaigners lobbied for $10 million to fix up a weedy, abused patch of land that became Colorado River Park, which in 2001 bore his name for the first time. A crowd of about 100 showed up for the ceremony to salute “Mr. Recreation,” another of his nicknames.

"He was my father away from home," late Travis County Commissioner Richard Moya said of Guerrero, whom Moya met when Moya was a teenager. "We thought we should do something for him for what he did for us."

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The praise continued.

"He took a bunch of young people who had problems growing up and he straightened them out," Garcia said at the time. "He took them even after they went to jail and he helped them. He was one of our heroes."

After Guerrero retired in 1981, former Mayor Pro Tem Jackie Goodman told this newspaper, "There was never a time he didn't have an idea for solving a problem."

As reported in 2001, Guerrero's response to such praise was low-key. "It's great," he said, "to be remembered."

Just three months later, he died.

And although memory of him has not waned, it’s not the same. What happened after Guerrero’s death is not uncommon, but it is still unsettling.

Scores of times, the words “Roy Guerrero” have appeared in media since then, but attached not to the man but to the sometimes controversial park that bears his name. Located near the rapidly changing Montopolis and Pleasant Valley neighborhoods, across the river from other historically low-income areas, the park has been site of contention for those who would like it to be improved to the level of Zilker Park on the west side, but at the same time to be left alone, especially its perhaps overly popular Secret Beach area on the Colorado River shallows.

What had been a dairy farm, then an unofficial dump and homeless campsite, the land was acquired in part by a donation from city parks matron Roberta Crenshaw and a 1984 parks bond. It took years — and more bond money in 1998 — to clean it up and add recreational equipment.

Additionally, the park was twice at risk of being buried by oversize development, once when the minor league baseball team that later became the Round Rock Express pitched a stadium for the spot and, more recently, when it was suggested as a candidate for Major League Soccer stadium.

Both times, parks and neighborhood advocates shut down those proposals.

Roy Guerrero Park, perhaps in part because of a lingering respect for the man who advocated for such urban oases, has earned a set of loyal and powerful friends.

Austin Found

You can’t understand New Austin without delving into Old Austin. This feature explains parts of Austin and Texas history, often sparked by historic images.