H and H Coffee

Dedicated to the history of the Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Co. founded 1899 in San Antonio, Texas.

Major American railroad serving San Antonio and the western Sunbelt. Founded 1865; merged into Union Pacific in 1996 (UP retained the surviving corporate identity; SP brand retired). For the H and H Coffee Factory project, Southern Pacific is the rail-infrastructure anchor for two of H&H’s plant addresses and a documented distribution channel.

Rail-adjacent H&H plant addresses

Both of H&H’s industrial-scale plants sat directly on Southern Pacific tracks:

  • 331 Burnett Street (1923–1932) — explicitly named “S.P. Tracks” in the firm’s own letterhead and the 26 August 1923 San Antonio Light trade-spread footer: “Hoffmann Hayman Coffee Co. — WHOLESALE COFFEE, TEAS AND SPICES — 331 Burnett St. — S.P. Tracks — SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS.” See places/331-burnett-street.md.
  • 601 Delaware Street (1932–1972) — the 1932 purpose-built factory sits “between South Cherry Street and Hoefgen Avenue, at the Southern Pacific tracks.” See places/601-delaware-street.md.

The rail spur access was operationally significant: green-coffee bags from Mexican origins (Tacana, Chiapas, Soconusco region — see San Antonio Nexapa and Uncommon Grounds) and other industrial supply could be delivered by rail directly to the plant siding.

Distribution channel

The April 1917 corporate roster (per companies/hoffman-hayman-company.md) named Southern Pacific (west to Del Rio) as one of H&H’s documented distribution routes, alongside the San Antonio interurban, the I. & G. N. (San Antonio→Laredo), Corpus Christi, and Brownsville country routes, plus mail-order into Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona. Southern Pacific therefore functioned both as the siding-adjacent vendor at the plant and as the outbound shipping carrier for H&H’s Trans-Pecos / west-Texas trade.

Successor: Union Pacific

After the 1996 SP–UP merger, the tracks bordering 601 Delaware became Union Pacific operating territory. The right-of-way still functions as an active rail siding today. See places/533-delaware-street.md for the modern parcel-adjacency context and the FRA quiet-zone planning thread tied to the crossing.

Texco Coffee — peripheral name connection

The H&H sub-brand Texco Coffee appears on the 1917 wholesale roster but its name is a regional-shortening convention common in Texas, not a direct Southern Pacific tie. The TEXCO name predates the rail-distribution relationship and is documented as a route-/region-name compound rather than a partner brand.

Open questions

  • Surveying — Union Pacific / Southern Pacific ROW records. The “G — M — A” pavement marker at the 601 Delaware entry gate may correspond to surveying done for the rail-siding right-of-way; ROW survey records would document.
  • Siding lifecycle. When did the H&H rail siding go out of operational use? The 1972 G. P. Menger real-estate sale presumably ended H&H-side siding use; Continental Coffee Company’s 1972-1975 occupancy may have retained siding access; modern UP traffic does not stop at 601 Delaware.
  • Period photographs. Are there documented period photographs showing the rail siding in active H&H use (coffee bags being unloaded, etc.)? UTSA Special Collections or the Witte Museum might hold such images.

See also