Macdona

Macdona is on the Southern Pacific line just off Loop 1604, eighteen miles southwest of downtown San Antonio in southwestern Bexar County. It was named for George Macdona, an Englishman, who owned the townsite. The first recorded sale of town lots was dated July 7, 1886, apparently the date of the founding of the town, which grew up on the newly built Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway. A post office opened there in 1886, and by 1900 Macdona had a depot, a general store, a hotel, a restaurant, a cotton gin, and three saloons. The town declined in the 1930s, but in 1945 it consisted of the post office, a grammar school, a grocery store, a garage, a filling station, a fruit stand, a blacksmith shop, a Catholic church, and a population of 100. In 1965 the number of residents was fifty, but with the growth of nearby San Antonio in the 1970s and 1980s, Macdona prospered, and in 1990 it had a population of 297.