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With neither the modern skyline of an oil town,
nor the tumbleweed-strewn landscape of the Wild West, attractive
and festive SAN ANTONIO looks nothing like the
stereotypical image of Texas - despite being pivotal in the state's
history. Standing at a geographical crossroads, it encapsulates
the complex social and ethnic mixes of all Texas. Although the
Germans, among others, have made a strong contribution to its
architecture, cuisine and music, today's San Antonio is predominantly
Hispanic : abundant Tex-Mex restaurants, the
prevalent Catholicism, the newly expanded Mexican Cultural Institute
and advertising billboards in Spanish all attest to a long history
of "Texican" culture.
Founded in 1691 by Spanish missionaries, San Antonio
became a military garrison in 1718, and was settled by the Anglos
in the 1720s and 1730s under Austin's colonization program. It
is most famous for the legendary Battle of the Alamo
in 1836, when the Mexican General Santa Anna, seeking to curb
the aspirations of the Anglo-Americans, wiped out a band of Texan
volunteers: hence San Antonio's claim to be the "birthplace
of the revolution," borne out by its role during Texas's
ten subsequent years of independence. After the Civil War, it
became a hard-drinking, hard-fighting "sin city," at
the heart of the Texas cattle and oil
empires. Drastic floods in the 1920s wiped out much of
the downtown area, but the sensitive WPA program which revitalized
two of the city's prettiest sites, La Villita
and the River Walk , laid the foundations for
its future as a major tourist destination. San Antonio is now
the eighth largest city in the US, but it retains an unhurried,
organic feel, thanks to a winning combination of small town warmth,
respect for diversity and a self-confidence rooted in its own
history.
