The Military Post (Fort Sam Houston), on Government Hill, one mile to the north of the city, costing over two million dollars, is one of the largest in the United States and deserves a visit. The tower (eighty-eight feet high), in the center of the quadrangle, commands a splendid view of the city and its environs.
The old Spanish Missions near the city most often visited are the First and Second Missions, but, the Third and Fourth Missions have much interest also.
The Mission of the Conception, or First Mission, lies about two and a quarter miles to the south of the city (reached via Garden Street), dates from 1731 to 1752, and is well preserved. The church has two towers and a central dome. The Mission San Jose de Aguayo, or Second Mission, four miles to the south of the city, dates from 1720 to 1731 and is the most beautiful of all.
OLD SPANISH CHURCH OF THE ALAMO, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
During the war of Texan independence, the Alamo, then converted into a fort, was the scene of an extraordinary conflict, the fort being held by Colonel David Crockett and Colonel James Bowie. Though almost continually assailed from February 23 to March 6, 1836, it only yielded when the defenders were all slain but five; these were captured by the Mexicans and cruelly slain. “Remember the Alamo,” thereafter became a war cry, and the place itself has been called the “Thermopylæ of America.”
Among the educational institutions are St. Louis College (Roman Catholic), St. Mary’s Hall, St. Mary’s College, Wolfe Memorial School, and the Ursuline Convent and School.
San Antonio is the natural trading center for an immense area, its jobbing houses have an extensive trade in Mexico as well as in Texas. The industrial establishments are machine shops, foundries, breweries, flour mills, binderies, cotton presses, ice plants, tanneries, marble works, cement works, and manufactories of brooms, carriages and wagons, candy, soda and mineral waters, mattresses, bricks and tiles. It is a leading cattle, horse, and mule market, ships large quantities of cotton, wool, and hides; and is the financial center of the largest stock raising interests of the Southwest. The surrounding district, irrigated by water, obtained from deep artesian wells, is extensively engaged in truck farming for Northern markets.
Although the Spaniards built a fort at San Antonio in 1689, its real settlement began in 1714. In 1718 the Franciscan mission of San Antonio de Valero was founded, and, about 1722, on another site was built the Alamo, the “cradle of Texans’ liberty,” in which in 1836 a garrison of about one hundred and eighty men, among them Davy Crockett and James Bowie, for eleven days resisted General Santa Ana’s Mexican army, numbering thousands of men. Eight battles for independence were fought in or near San Antonio between 1776 and 1836, successively under Spanish, French, Mexican, and Texan flags. It received a city charter in 1873.