San Antonio

The city of San Antonio is best known as the home of the Alamo, the site of an infamous standoff between Texans and Mexicans that ended in the death of Davy Crockett, among others. However, this interesting Texas city is still worthy of attention, well after the end of that battle.

As of 2023, San Antonio was the state's second-largest city, after Houston. Unlike some other historic areas, it is a thriving small city, with much to offer visitors and residents.

Landscape

San Antonio is located in the south-central part of Texas, on the San Antonio River, which serves as the heart of the city. A nearly three-mile section of the riverfront, known as the Riverwalk, is the showpiece of the downtown area, and is home to upscale businesses and community events.

Park space is another important aspect of the city's landscape. Brackenridge Park covers 343 acres, and features the city zoo, among other attractions. Friedrich Wilderness Park, which is obviously the more natural of the city's two major parks, occupies 232 acres in the middle of the city.

People

According to the US Census Bureau, San Antonio's population was estimated at 1.47 million in 2023. Women slightly outnumbered men in the city, representing 50.3 percent of the population.

Ethnically, the city is 22.6 percent White and 65.8 percent Hispanic or Latino, according to the US Census Bureau. The next-largest minority group, the African American community, accounts for 6.6 percent of the population. The median age in San Antonio was 33.9 years, according to statistics from 2021.

Economy

In December 2023, the San Antonio area had a fairly active and employed workforce, with an unemployment rate of 3.1 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The median household income in San Antonio between 2019 and 2022 was estimated at $59,593 (in 2022 dollars), according to the US Census Bureau.

San Antonio is the site of some of the United States' largest military installations, including Fort Sam Houston, and the Lackland and Randolph Air Force Bases. These five bases make up a major percentage of the city's workforce and economy. It is worth noting that military bases, as opposed to manufacturing activities, help create a more stable job market. In 2010, Fort Sam Houston, Randolph Air Force Base, and Lackland Air Force Base merged to become Joint Base San Antonio.

Livestock still plays an active part in the city's economy, although livestock farming is not as important today as it was in 1877, when the railroad first arrived in San Antonio. In those days, the city's primary function was as a transfer center for livestock, brought in by train from the surrounding countryside.

The only major sports franchise in the city is the San Antonio Spurs. From 1999 to 204, the Spurs won five NBA titles.

Landmarks

It hardly needs to be said that the greatest landmark in the city is the Alamo. The city's entire tourist business in based on this national treasure, in much the same way that the Liberty Bell is a major attraction in Philadelphia.

San Antonio is renowned for its missions, of which the Alamo (once called Mission San Antonio de Valero) is only one. Other missions have thrived in San Antonio for centuries, and continue as Catholic parishes to this day. The city's major missions during the eighteenth century included San Jose, San Juan, Concepcion, and Espada.

Mission San Jose, built in 1720, was the greatest of the missions of the period. Many hundreds of people resided there at one point. The mission's Rose Window, with its incredibly intricate carving, is known as one of the finest pieces of Spanish Colonial art in the United States.

Another of San Antonio's famous missions is Mission Concepcion. It is the oldest unrestored stone church in America, and still has its original frescoes visible on the walls. Amazingly, it still operates as a church as well.

In addition to the city's many missions, San Antonio's military installations are also historically important. Preeminent among these is Fort Sam Houston. Opened in 1845, decades before the Civil War, it was the site of the first flight of a military aircraft in 1910. As such, it is the birthplace of military aviation. Visitors to the base can also see homes owned by such famous soldiers as Douglas MacArthur, John Pershing, and Dwight Eisenhower.

History

The war for Texan independence began in 1835, when frustrated Texas settlers began to revolt against Mexican rule. That December, the city of San Antonio was captured by Texas rebel forces, which included Jim Bowie, credited as the inventor of the Bowie knife, and American pioneer and frontiersman Davy Crockett. They took the Mission San Antonio de Valero as their headquarters, which later became known as the Alamo.

In early 1836, an army of more than 1,500 Mexicans, lead by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, advanced on San Antonio, and the Texans were greatly outnumbered. While they managed to hold the Alamo against the Mexican army for ten days, it is believed that all 183 Texans died inside the mission.

It is easy to imagine how, only six weeks later at the battle of San Jacinto, the fallen Texans were very much on the minds of their comrades who continued to fight, giving rise to the famous battle cry "remember the Alamo!"

The story of San Antonio, though, goes back further than that famous battle—to 1691. That was the year of the first recorded visit to the site, by a monk of the Franciscan order. By chance, it was the day of the feast of St. Anthony ("San Antonio de Padua," in Spanish). In celebration of this fact, the spot was named for the saint.

San Antonio was permanently settled on May 1, 1718, when the territory's Spanish governor, Martin de Alarcon, founded a fort near the river. However, the riverside spot had already been settled by the Coahuiltecan Indians. The fort was known as the presidio of San Antonio de Bejar, and for a time, the soldiers and natives lived side by side in peace.

Texas became an independent republic in 1836, just in time to play a part in the US Civil War. San Antonio was quickly incorporated as a city, on January 5 of the following year.

Following the Civil War, in which the State of Texas seceded from the Union but did not see much fighting, San Antonio became a distribution center, thanks to its well-developed transportation infrastructure. During this period, cattle was the most important cargo carried by the area's railroads.

Later, San Antonio became the site of Texas's first skyscraper. However, like most places with lots of land and a growing and mobile population, most of the city's energy went into outward, rather than upward, expansion. Suburbs began springing up on the outskirts of the city, as the different cultures present in the population clashed.

Although it fell behind Dallas and Houston in the early twentieth century, San Antonio did experience an enormous population boom in the 1940s, due to its many military installations and the advent of World War II. For many years following the war, San Antonio's army bases were the major drivers of the city's economy.

Prior to 1955, city government in San Antonio was conducted in the mayor-alderman format. A string of incompetent mayors resulted in widespread corruption, and the city chose to switch to the city council model, which continues to govern the city today. The city council was at the heart of a debate over religious descrimination in 2019 when the decision was made to ban the restaurant Chick-fil-A from doing business in San Antonio's international airport.

Trivia

• Actors Carol Burnett and Joan Crawford, and military official Oliver North, are all natives of San Antonio.
• The famous "Alamo" got its nickname from a nearby grove of Cottonwood trees, also known as Alamo trees.
• Santa Anna, the opposing general at the Alamo, called himself "the Napoleon of the West," and was deeply afraid of water.

Bibliography

Casanova, Rudy Felix. San Antonio, City for a King: An Account of the Colonial History of San Antonio and Texas. Trafford, 2013.

"QuickFacts: San Antonio (City), Texas." US Census Bureau, US Department of Commerce, www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/sanantoniocitytexas/PST045222. Accessed 19 Feb. 2024.

Reynolds, Christopher. "In San Antonio, Remembering (and Rethinking) the Alamo." Los Angeles Times, 8 Nov. 2014, www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-d-alamo-postcard-main-20141109-story.html. Accessed 6 Mar. 2018.

Rybczyk, Mark Louis. San Antonio Uncovered: Fun Facts and Hidden Histories. Maverick Books, 2016.

"San Antonio Area Economic Summary." Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Dept. of Labor, 7 Feb. 2024, www.bls.gov/regions/southwest/summary/blssummary‗sanantonio.pdf. Accessed 19 Feb. 2024.