Seven Lasting Influences of the Spanish Crown

On June 13, 1691, the San Antonio River was discovered by Spanish explorers. Over 300 years later, the Spanish Crown’s influence on the city is still apparent.

1

It gave us the name San Antonio.

The river was named for St. Anthony de Padua because it was discovered on June 13, his feast day. Domingo Terán de los Ríos, governor of the New Philippines (as Texas was called then), and Padre Damián Massanet, senior chaplain, were both with the Spanish expedition party that discovered the river, and both claim in their journals that they are responsible for the name. And of course the city that grew up around that river became San Antonio as well.

In addition, Bexar County got its name from the Spanish governor, Martín de Alarcón, who proclaimed the name of the settlement on the river to be the Royal Presidio of San Antonio de Béxar on May 5, 1718. The presidio was named in honor of both the saint and the duke of Béjar (or Bexar), a brother of the viceroy, who had been killed in Hungary fighting the Turks.

2

It gave us the Alamo.

Originally named Mission San Antonio de Valero, the Alamo moved to its present site in 1724, where it was home to Spanish missionaries and Indian converts. The compound later became a military outpost and was defended by a small but determined group of Texas revolutionaries on March 6, 1836, when they were outnumbered by Santa Anna and his army. The site of this Spanish mission is also called the Shrine of Texas Liberty.

3

San Antonio still has four Spanish missions.

In addition to Mission San Antonio de Valero, four other missions were built in the eighteenth century in what is now San Antonio. Concepción, San José, Espada, and San Juan Capistrano were missions that housed Franciscans who converted the native Coahuiltecans to Catholicism and made them loyal to the Spanish Crown. Today these missions are all active parishes, and some parishioners are able to trace their ancestors to those early days. They belong to the largest collection of intact Spanish colonial missions in the country and are also part of San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. Mission Concepción is essentially in its original condition and is the oldest unreconstructed stone church in the United States.

4

The Spanish built the first public water system in the Americas.

In the early 1700s the same Franciscan priests who established the missions also designed channels, known as acequias, to supply themselves and their fields with water. These acequias were engineering marvels, dropping one inch for every hundred feet in order for the water to flow. Perhaps the most impressive feat was creating an aqueduct to carry water over the Piedras creek bed.

The acequias were still being used throughout the city in the 1800s, when they supplied water to beautiful gardens of nearby homes. Prominent German families built houses along the Acequia Madre. Many of the city’s early roads followed the acequias; in fact, Main Avenue downtown was originally known as Acequia Street. They also provided a crude sewer system, which was unfortunately a breeding ground for typhoid and cholera. In the late 1800s George Brackenridge’s Water Works Company began supplying water to the city, and most of the acequias dried up and were buried.

Small pieces of the acequia system can still be found downtown. The Alamo grounds feature one. Sections of a restored acequia in HemisFair Park are next to the children’s playground and in front of the Justice Center on Main Plaza. Pieces of the Acequia Madre and a dam were recently found in Brackenridge Park. Perhaps the best place to view an active acequia is at Mission San Juan Capistrano on the city’s far south side. You can follow it along the river, through the woods, and to the aqueduct. Both the aqueduct and the acequias are National Historic Civil Engineering monuments.

5

The Spanish gave us the aqueduct too.

On the south side of town, the aqueduct (or water bridge) that carries water to Mission Espada was built by Franciscans before the United States was even formed. The country’s last remaining Spanish-built functioning aqueduct is perhaps the city’s most forgotten historic site, but it is well worth the trip.

To get there by car, take Mission Road south from SW Military Drive past Stinson Field Airport. The road becomes Ashley, but continue to Espada Road and turn right. You should be able to see the aqueduct, which feeds water to the acequia, about 200 yards away. You could follow the acequia to the mission, except that you would be trespassing on private property. But a short drive down Espada Road will get you there.

Another interesting site north of the aqueduct is the Espada dam, which was built between 1731 and 1745 and has withstood many significant floods for more than 200 years. The dam, constructed with goat’s milk mixed with the mortar to make it waterproof, is all the more amazing because it is curved the wrong way. To view the dam, turn south on Mission Parkway just off SW Military Drive.

6

It designated the city’s first park.

In 1729 King Philip V of Spain, via his viceroy in Mexico, declared the grounds at the headwaters of the San Pedro Springs an ejido, or public land. The San Antonio Parks Department claims that San Pedro Springs Park is the second oldest park in the country (behind the Boston Commons). It sits across from San Antonio College on San Pedro Avenue and is home to San Pedro Springs Pool and the McFarlin Tennis Center.

7

It gave us La Villita.

La Villita, south of the Alamo on the San Antonio River, was originally home to the families of Spanish soldiers in the San Antonio de Béxar Presidio and is the city’s oldest neighborhood. The La Villita Historic District was refurbished under the Works Project Administration and is now the site of shops, artisans, restaurants, and numerous festivals.