The Alamo City - History of San Antonio, Texas

Texas' third largest city exists because of the river that winds through it. That stream, lined with oak, pecan and cottonwood trees, had provided water, food and shelter for Native Americans for thousands of years before the first men of European descent arrived in the late 17^th century.

An expedition led by Domingo Teran de los Rio, the first governor of New Spain, encountered the river on June 13, 1691. Teran noted in his diary: "We camped on the banks of a stream adorned by a great stand of trees.... I named it San Antonio de Padua because we reached it on his day."

Teran's entrada soon moved on, but another sentence in his diary foreshadowed the development that led to the settlement that became San Antonio. Observing that the Indians living in the area were "docile and affectionate, naturally friendly, and very well disposed toward us," he "saw the opportunity of using them to form missions...."

A quarter century passed before Spain finally began constructing missions in 1718 along the river Teran's expedition named. With an infusion of colonists from the Canary Islands in 1731, San Antonio grew into one of the more important towns of New Spain. By the time of American independence from Great Britain in 1776, the town had some 2,000 residents.

After Spain lost its North American territory in the revolution that gave birth to the Republic of Mexico, San Antonio continued as a major settlement. During the Texas Revolution in 1835-1836 it was the scene of one the world's most famous battles, the 13-day siege of the Alamo.

Once Texas became a state of the union, San Antonio-finally safe from invading military forces and hostile Indians-grew rapidly. What fueled that growth was its location: San Antonio was the western-most town in Texas, a supply point for anyone venturing into the vast unsettled Southwest. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, San Antonio, with more than 8,000 residents, was the largest city in the state.

Following the Civil War, San Antonio prospered as a stopping place for north-bound cattle drives and as a business and military center. Its first railroad arrived in 1877. Three years later, in 1880, San Antonio's population exceeded 20,000. By the beginning of the 20^th century, its population had more than doubled to 53,000. San Antonio reined as the largest city in Texas until 1920. Dallas and Houston overtook it in size by 1930.

Still, census enumerators counted 231,000 San Antonio residents in 1930. But the population, which by 2007 exceeded 1.2 million, only reflects the city's size, not its ambience. It is the ethnicity-Hispanic, European (primarily German), Anglo, African-American-of San Antonio's population and the overlapping cultures of these groups that has made the city what it is. San Antonio is often compared with Boston, New Orleans and San Francisco as one of America's four unique cities. With the Alamo and numerous other historic and contemporary attractions, from its Riverwalk dining and entertainment district to the largest marine life theme park in the world, San Antonio is one of the nation's top tourist destinations. As Texas writer J. Frank Dobie liked to say, every Texan has two hometowns-his own and San Antonio.