Botanist and high school teacher Ellen Schultz began her goal of starting a museum for the growing city of San Antonio in 1923. She began fundraising to acquire the well-known H.P. Attwater natural history collection the same year. Schultz and other interested local citizens including Lena McAllister, Ethel Drought and Mayor John Tobin formed the San Antonio Museum Association. Schultz organized schoolchildren to raise funds to acquire the Attwater Collection by selling bluebonnets and cakes and doing historical performances of Los Pastores. They raised enough funds and the natural history collection was purchased and installed at Main Avenue High School on October 8, 1923.