by Susan | Apr 16, 2022 | San Antonio insider
Here in San Antonio we get a kick out of visitors who ask, “where is the Alamo?” — and they are standing right in front of it! In the iconic 1960 John Wayne movie of that name his first view of the Alamo is across the dry Texas plains. Even in 1836,...
by Susan | Apr 16, 2022 | San Antonio insider
Miss Ernestine E. Edmunds, a school teacher and granddaughter of Manuel Yturri Castillo, willed this two-third acre tract to the San Antonio Conservation Society in 1961. Yturri Castillo had received the land grant, originally part of Mission Concepción lands, in...
by Susan | Apr 16, 2022 | San Antonio insider
From the 1860s until the late 1930s, both visitors and locals enjoyed the food and entertainment offered in the plazas of San Antonio by the Chili Queens. These women served chili con carne and other Mexican American foods from dusk until dawn at the San Antonio...
by Susan | Apr 16, 2022 | San Antonio insider
The Arsenal is now (mostly) the corporate HQ for the H.E.B. grocery chain — 2.7 acres of it is a public park, including the Commander’s House, is now a senior citizen activity center. The San Antonio Arsenal was founded in 1859 to furnish arms and...
by Susan | Apr 16, 2022 | San Antonio insider
Cast in iron by E. Howard Clock Company of Boston, his clock was first installed in front of Eli Hertzberg Jewelry Company on Commerce Street in 1878. In 1910, when Commerce St. was widened, the company – and its clock – moved to the corner of St. Mary’s and Houston...
by Susan | Apr 15, 2022 | San Antonio insider
The River Walk draws several million tourists a year, is ranked as one of the top travel destinations in Texas and has inspired riverside developments throughout the world. San Antonio almost covered it over with cement. At the end of the 19th Century the San Antonio...
by Susan | Apr 15, 2022 | San Antonio insider
On November 23, 1936 Robert Johnson created the template for electric blues, which became rock-and-roll, in Room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio. You’ll pass the Gunter, which opened in 1909, on the Friday Friendship Walk: it’s on E. Houston St.,...
by Susan | Apr 15, 2022 | San Antonio insider
The San Antonio is not a majestic river; its bridges are accordingly modest. You won’t find a Chesapeake Bay Bridge here, or a Clifton Suspension Bridge. The model for the River Walk was Venice, but we we have nothing like the 400 bridges that span the narrow...
by Susan | Apr 15, 2022 | San Antonio insider
Throughout the city of San Antonio you will find the work of Dionicio Rodriguez, carried on by his great nephew, Carlos Cortés: Faux Bois, or, false wood. In Mexico it is often referred to as trabajero rustico (rustic work) but it all means the same thing: concrete...
by Susan | Apr 15, 2022 | San Antonio insider
San Antonio has a rich history of leadership and innovation in civil and military aviation. The first flight of an airplane in the San Antonio skies was in February 1910 by French barnstormer Louis Paulhan. It was quickly followed by the first military flight in the...
