Dr. Antonio Banuelos was born in Spain, but his family fled to Mexico due to political danger. He learned to play instruments at a conservatory in Germany, and he traveled through the United States performing. The orchestra he started in the 1920s, which included 180 children from a slum area in Juarez, played for President Obregon of Mexico in 1924 and earned fame and trophies wherever they performed.
After coming to Houston, Dr. Banuelos became a member of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. In 1935, Humble Oil and Refining Company hired Dr. Banuelos to teach music to the children of Humble employees, and the company and the parents paid his salary. He directed La Tipica or Tipica Orchestra Mexicana, an all-girls orchestra, and the Baytown Mexican School Band, an all-boys band. Together these programs became the music program at De Zavala Elementary School in the middle of the Depression. The school district took over his salary, so children of non-refinery workers were able to enroll in the music program.
The Tipica Orchestra Mexicana included 30 female members who played throughout Texas. Parents scraped together money to buy their children’s instruments, but Dr. Banuelos often supplied instruments he paid for himself. Toward the end of World War II, they played for servicemen in veterans hospitals.