San Antonio Early History! (Houston, Austin: university, land, office) - Texas (TX) - City-Data Forum

wCat · 02-21-2007, 02:11 PM

One of the recent threads involved things to know about San Antonio. Some of the discussion led to roads, city limits, and the crazy way this town is laid out. A lot of that has to do with early history. Some of the bizarre or just flat out illogical things that bother some people about the city planning etc have early roots. Per request by IRNAQ and 940 ....here's the place for the history junkies!

We were talking about how the city was laid out....and that it's not on a grid system and very confusing.

wCat · 02-21-2007, 02:34 PM

Here's an early map from the Texas State Archives in the General Land Office in Austin. You can order copies of these maps from their web site which is open to the public. http://www.glo.state.tx.us/archives/archives.html

This is of Bexar County in 1932. You can see the shape of the San Antonio "city limits" in the center where it's blank.

wCat · 02-21-2007, 02:43 PM

The map above is hard to read. The dot in the center of the "city" of San Antonio is Main Plaza down town. To give you some perspective, the NE border of the city limits crosses right through Alamo Heights along the highest ridge embankment that later became the rock quarry and is now "The Quarry Market". The North point is somewhere above North Star Mall.

This was mapped in 1932 from an old record of the city limits. I'll post another one where they imposed the "grid" on the city limits. Obviously all of this has currently changed as there isn't much in Bexar County left that isn't incorporated in the city of San Antonio with the exception of the smaller city municipalities.

I think Shaleman mentioned the "spokes" from downtown....these being the very early stage coach routes to other counties and towns. This map shows them clearly.

940 · 02-21-2007, 02:54 PM

Thanks wCat...love the thread. Appreciate the time and effort involved in posting the map as well. I'll see if I can find some of my old maps and post them some time.

wCat · 02-21-2007, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 940

Thanks wCat...love the thread. Appreciate the time and effort involved in posting the map as well. I'll see if I can find some of my old maps and post them some time.

I can't wait to see them! (my kids run when I pull out the maps!

)

Here's a map of San Antonio in 1909. The large green area to the upper right that says 'drill grounds' is Fort Sam Houston Army Post. Directly across to the left is Brackenridge Park. Right above that is a little tributary with a circle and that denotes the source of the San Antonio River. The branch that runs into that is Olmos Creek. That's the current campus of the University of Incarnate Word. Alamo Heights would be right above that.

You can see that they were attempting a "grid" by this time, but the main streets were already in place. It looks more like a crazy quilt to me!

Oh...also Courtesy of the Texas State Archives General Land Office web site.