Farmland, Three Doctors, and an Air Base on the Horizon
In late 1929, San Antonio doctors Henry Ogilvie, Witten Russ, and Samuel Cunningham bought farmland northeast of the city. Their reasoning was simple: the airfield planned nearby, the future Randolph Air Force Base, would bring people who needed houses and stores. The tract took the name Universal City in 1931.
The bet paid off slowly and then all at once. When the Air Training Command moved its headquarters to the base in 1957, housing on the base ran short and building outside the gate took off. Worried about annexation by San Antonio, residents voted to incorporate in 1960. About 1,800 people lived here then. Within a decade the figure topped 7,500, and the Census Bureau now estimates more than 20,000.
Life on Pat Booker Road
Pat Booker Road, State Highway 218, is the main commercial street, where the businesses serving residents and base personnel cluster. The city is one of the formal partners in the Joint Land Use Study for JBSA-Randolph, and its fortunes have tracked the base’s for almost a century.
For a business owner on the corridor, the risks are the familiar retail ones: after-hours break-ins through a rear door, shoplifting, and the occasional employee who leaves with more than a paycheck. Our business security work starts with the back of the building, since that is where most burglars start. Commercial video surveillance that clearly records the register, the stockroom, and the parking lot gives you something useful to hand police, not just a blurry silhouette.
Shop owners on the corridor also deal with a quieter problem: the alarm that goes off for no reason. A sensor that trips because of a loose door or a balloon drifting past a motion detector costs time, strains patience with responding officers, and may draw a fine depending on local rules. Our service and maintenance visits find and fix those culprits before they turn your alarm into background noise.
Crime report · 2020–2024
Universal City’s police chief told the council in 2025 that property crime rose in 2023, driven by burglary and theft, then fell back below average in 2024.
Reporting agency: Universal City Police Department
Universal City’s police department briefed the city council in August 2025 on five years of offense data, from 2020 through 2024. According to a published summary of that meeting, violent crime stayed very low, with only a few incidents a year. Property crime was the moving part. It spiked in 2023, mostly from burglary and theft that the department linked to economic pressures, then returned to below-average levels in 2024. The summary did not include the underlying counts, and we could not verify them elsewhere, so this page lists no figures. The Universal City Police Department can provide the numbers.
A one-year spike that recedes the next year is a useful reminder that property crime moves with the economy, and that a household doesn’t control the economy. It does control what a passing thief can see and reach. Packages, unlocked cars, and open garages make up a large share of theft almost everywhere. Our field guide to package theft and porch pirates covers the easy fixes.
A City Where Four in Ten Homes Are Rentals
Census survey data put Universal City’s owner-occupancy rate at 58.3 percent, which means roughly four in ten occupied homes are rented. That is no surprise in a base town, where assignments last a few years and renting often makes more sense than buying. It does change the security conversation.
Landlords have legal duties here. Texas requires specific locks and security devices on rental homes, and our guide to Texas rental security device law lays them out. Owners of several units may want a system they can manage between tenants: smart locks with codes reset at move-out, and monitoring that can be handed from one renter to the next.
Renters have options too. Wireless sensors and cameras install without drilling into the walls the landlord cares about, and they go with you when the next set of orders arrives.
In a base town, the next move is always a few years out. Security that moves with you makes sense.
When the House Sits Empty for Weeks
Military and civilian base workers travel. A temporary duty assignment, a deployment, or a long holiday back home can leave a house empty for weeks. An empty house gives itself away through small things: a full mailbox, the same lights on all day, a garage door that never moves.
Automation covers for you while you’re gone. Lights follow a believable schedule. The thermostat stays reasonable. 24/7 monitoring means an alarm at 2 a.m. gets a call and a dispatch whether or not your phone is on. If a neighbor is watering the plants, they get a code that works only during the hours you choose.
Your Universal City Walk-Through
San Antonio Protection Services has been locally owned since it opened in 2010, and it holds Texas DPS Private Security Bureau license B16898. We work throughout the Randolph area, including in Converse, Live Oak, and Schertz.
A technician walks your home or storefront with you, notes what a stranger can see from the street or the alley, and tests anything already installed. You get a written plan and time to think it over. It starts with a free security assessment.
Landmarks we know well
- Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph
- Pat Booker Road (State Highway 218)
