Our Journey Into Hobbies

Dibble’s Hobbies is, without a doubt, the oldest hobby shop in San Antonio, and it may be the oldest in Texas. We can only attribute our longevity to dumb luck and good people – our customers and employees. 

However, Dibble’s didn’t begin its life as a “Hobby Shop” – there was no such thing in 1905. The original owners, the Dibble family, started it as a hardware and bicycle shop in downtown San Antonio and would bring in sporting goods and toys for Christmas. The store slowly evolved into a full-time toy store by the 1950’s, carrying bikes, sports equipment, camping gear and toys. In 1955, Dibble’s Toy Store was bought by the Johnson family, who moved it to its current location in the Jefferson Village shopping center in 1957 (at a time when the “strip center” was the newest idea in retail!). Since then, it has continued to slowly change with the times and the tastes of our customers – from Dibble’s Toys in the 1950’s, to Dibble’s Toys & Hobbies in the 1960’s, to Dibble’s Arts & Hobbies in the 1970’s, and finally to Dibble’s Hobbies in the late 1980’s. The ownership also changed but always within the “family” of store employees and is now owned and operated (since 1995) by the Chladek family.