This sixteen room mansion built in 1859 for James Vance of Stebaune, Ireland, stands as a splendid example of the Greek Revival influence in architecture felt all through the South before the Civil War. Robert E. Lee was often a guest here. The lumber and iron railings were brought in from New Orleans and much of the materials used in its construction were imported. It is said that the water hydrants were of solid silver.
The San Antonio River is but a narrow meandering stream, with headwaters just outside the northern city limits. In the twists and turns it makes, crossing six miles of street, it passes beneath 42 bridges. The Indians of the locality used a word that characteristically describes it as a “drunken-old-man-going-home-at-night”.
The beautiful San Antonio River is about twenty feet below street level and the part that winds along twenty-one blocks of the downtown business section has been beautified and transformed into a Venetian-like canal. Stairways, each of a different design, lead down from the bridges to the river walkways lined with trees and shrubs, many of them semi-tropical. Here one can stop and relax away from the noise of traffic on the upper street level.
In the early days, Old St. Mary’s College, established in 1852, maintained a boat landing here and many of the boys who lived along the river came to school in their boats.
On St. Mary’s Street, at a picturesque bend in the river, has been preserved the home of John Twohig, erected in the early 1840’s. Because he gave barrels of bread to the poor on each Saturday, Twohig was given the name of “the breadline banker”.
One of the several boat landings along the San Antonio River. Many of the buildings bordering the river have overhanging balconies and a few street level business houses can be reached from river bank entrances.