The San Antonio Police History Archive has been designed as an academic tool for social-historical research with primary interest in the areas of municipal law enforcement organization and bureaucracy; the history and development of the San Antonio Police Force and the City of San Antonio, Texas within a research window of 1 August 1731 (the creation of municipal authority) to June 1939 (the establishment of a Police Training School by the SAPD).

The Research and Document section currently contains in excess of 5000 entries and is divided into four primary areas:

• A collection of extracts from the Bexar Archives providing examples of the processes involved in the investigation and reporting of serious crimes occurring in the 1700s, when the Villa of San Fernando was a settlement on the edge of the European known world. Even a casual examination of these records reveals that criminal activity was met with careful and well understood investigative procedure. Such procedure coupled the rigidity of legal mandate that served to maintain compliance with an accommodation to the frontier existence and its special circumstances.

• Newspaper extracts of all surviving San Antonio newspapers. It was originally intended that this section provide a copy of each and every newspaper page upon which an individual officer or the San Antonio Police Force was mentioned, commented upon or appeared in an article, with a research window from the earliest newspapers (1850s) to 1939.

• Extracts of The Minute Books of the City Council. These begin in the 1830s. The original minutes of the city council meetings provide great insight into the development of the department as well as dating and detailing the purchasing of uniforms, equipment, wages and the appointment of individual officers.

• Maps. The social-history bounty that is the Sanborn map collection needs no additional comment; street maps, oil company maps, streetcar line maps, etc.