In this city the sculptor became deeply involved in several projects promoted mostly by women, who often took the lead in civic improvements. There were women’s clubs all over the state which invited the sculptor to tell his ideas on the art and beautification of one’s surroundings. The Conservation Society of San Antonio interested him in their pet project of beautifying the banks of the San Antonio River, a lazy little stream that threaded its way through the city. Real-estate interests wanted to fill up the stream and use the space for more buildings, but the women wouldn’t hear of it. In this the sculptor joined heartily, but his ideas conflicted with theirs when it came to restoration of old Spanish ruins. From his experience in preserving the California missions the sculptor was keenly interested in these San Antonio ruins, one of which, the San Jose Mission, is especially beautiful. A copy of its rose window was sent to the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933. Before he arrived, its belfry tower had collapsed. Mrs. J. P. Drought, one of the most civic-minded leaders San Antonio ever had, had at her own expense hired workmen to collect the stones and wood blocks for the stairs and return them to their original places. The belfry stairs, triangular blocks of wood that unknown hands had carved out of big trees, had been carried away as relics by Mexican families, and the same Mrs. Drought had searched them out, one by one, and brought them back to the mission as a real work of restoration. Meanwhile the Conservation Society engaged a local architect to restore parts of the old church and a granary which had almost disappeared. Seeing what was going on and knowing that such a restoration would only destroy the original character of the mission, Gutzon wrote an article in protest against what seemed to him vandalism, but never published it because he did not want to hurt the feelings of a friend who was most active in the undertaking. Instead, he sent her the typed article with this friendly warning: “I alone am honest enough to tell you that you cannot restore the lost lines of a great poem, the lost notes of a great opera, the lost parts of a great building, the lost parts of a great painting.” And there were other projects. There were two large musical societies in the city, both run by women, with considerable rivalry between them. The leader of one club came to the sculptor begging his help in building an open-air theater in an old quarry in Breckenridge Park where she could have performances by her Civic Opera Company. “We have no money to pay an architect,” she said. “Won’t you design us a theater, just for the love of art and music?”