Travis Park Methodist Church @ East Travis and Navarro

In 1835, before Texas won independence from Mexico. The publisher of the New York Christian Advocate, a Methodist publication, received a letter from the Mexican colony of Texas. Written by 26-year-old Col. William B. Travis of the volunteer Texas army, the letter called for the establishment of a Methodist presence in the region where settlers were beginning to revolt against the government of Mexico.

Travis wrote, "I regret that the Methodist church, which, with its excellent itinerant system, has hitherto sent pioneers of the Gospel into almost every destitute portion of the globe, should have neglected so long this interesting country." He asked that five Methodist missionaries be sent to Texas. Travis was killed 7 months later, serving as commander at the Battle of the Alamo. Texas independence soon followed and the Methodists in the northeast sent three volunteers to start the Texas Mission of the Mississippi Conference and steady growth of Methodism began.

In 1846, Rev. DeVilbiss received his appointment to the San Antonio Mission Station to organize a church. He moved to San Antonio and, finding no convenient house available in the city, rented a small house seven miles down the San Antonio River. He taught in a small school to earn extra funds while getting the mission started in the city. He arranged for regular use of the Court House on the east side of Main Plaza as a place of worship and he built the pulpit and seats used in these services. DeVilbiss preached regularly and often had to contend with the noise of the people who gathered on the plaza to engage in cockfighting.

This congregation who met in 1846 was the beginning of the community of faith that grew into Travis Park United Methodist Church.

http://www.travispark.org/templates/System/details.asp?id=42710&PID=760730

Southwest School of Art & Crafts @ Augusta and Giraud St.

The Ursuline Campus of the Southwest School of Art & Craft, on the National Register of Historic Places, is located on the edge of downtown San Antonio, on the scenic River Walk.

On this historic site, a convent was established in 1851, when seven Catholic nuns arrived in San Antonio to start San Antonio's first school for girls. The complex expanded throughout the 1800s under the architectural direction of Francois Giraud.

In 1965, the Sisters moved the academy because the historic buildings had fallen into serious disrepair, and the San Antonio Conservation Society purchased most of the property. In 1971, they offered it to a fledgling art school serving the San Antonio community. Over the next ten years, with the help of many benefactors, the art school purchased the property and restored the buildings and grounds, a process which continues today.

Laurel Heights United Methodist Church @ Woodlawn and Belknap

This church is located in the historic Monte Vista Neighborhood. It is currently 101 years old and was built in 1909.

Aurora Apartments @ 509 Howard

Aurora was built in 1929. Formally a hotel in the 1980s, it became a senior community. Now it is complete with Bingo night!

Audreys Mexican Restaurant @ 601 Camden St.

Open since 1948, closed July 31, 2009. 60 years serving some of the best Mexican food in town.

San Fernando Cathedral

San Fernando Cathedral has always been at the center of San Antonio. It is a special place that occupies a unique position in this city and for the many visitors who come by the thousands every year.

From its founding on March 9, 1731 by a group of 15 families who came from the Canary Islands at the invitation of King Phillip V of Spain, this church was planned to be at the center of the life of this city.

San Fernando Cathedral functions not exclusively as a Catholic Cathedral, but as a center of unity and harmony for all the God-loving people of San Antonio and beyond.

Over 5,000 participate at weekend Masses each week of the year. Over 900 baptisms, 100 weddings, 100 funerals, and countless other services are performed each year. Symphonies, concerts, and television specials are but a few of the special events held in the cathedral regularly. Hundreds of people enter the church daily to pray, visit, light a candle, or follow various devotional traditions. Tour buses arrive constantly. Each person is a part of the story of this magnificent place and a tribute to its enduring presence as the spiritual center of San Antonio.

King William District

The King William area was originally farmland, irrigated by acequias flowing from the San Antonio River, owned by the 1718 Mission San Antonio de Valero. By the beginning of the 19th century, the missions were fully secularized, and the land belonging to Mission Concepcion was bought, sold, and divided into tracts by land speculators, beginning in the 1840s.

One of the earliest to settle was Carl Guenther, a German immigrant who built Pioneer Flour Mills on the lower bend of the San Antonio River. A number of other successful and influential German immigrants discovered the area and began building mansions, using Greek Revival, Victorian, and Italianate architectural styles. Ernst Altgelt, the first to build on current-day King William Street, is credited with naming his street after King Wilhelm I of Prussia.

When neighborhoods to the north began drawing King William residents away in the 1920s, many of the grand mansions were turned into apartments and the district fell into decline. But in the 1960s, creative young professionals rediscovered King William and began a renaissance, which continues to this day. The district was expanded in 1984 to include a more eclectic neighborhood of cottages south of Alamo Street.

281 South @ Grayson

King William Neighborhood - San Antonio @ Durango Blvd.

Houston Street @ San Antonio River

I-10 @ 410 Interchange - Dead Mans Jump

McAllister Park - Dry River Bed

McAllister Park, located adjacent to the San Antonio International Airport, is 856 acres of recreational opportunity for activities like hiking, biking, fishing, and wildlife observation.


PHOTO CREDIT Jason Hardin

The Alamo Quarry Marketplace

The Alamo Quarry Market is a lifestyle center located in the Lincoln Heights area of north central San Antonio. It once functioned as a cement factory until it was abandoned. Since then it has be redevelopment into a thriving market with a Regal Cinema theater dominating the oldest building and is surrounded by other businesses including bookstores and many restaurants.

The Quarry still maintains the facade of the cement factory and its most notable feature and landmark is the four historical smokestacks that can be seen several miles from the Quarry. In 1998 Tramell Crow brought in structural restoration and preservation specialist, Delta Structural Technology, Inc. to restore and preserve three of the four stacks. The structures are approximately 204 ft high, and 18 ft diameter at the base and, 15 ft diameter at the top. These smokestacks had previously been retrofitted with steel bands every 20 ft. from top to bottom, which had either rusted and fallen off or had relaxed providing little, if any structural confinement. The structural contractor utilized an exclusive retrofit technique which involved complete encapsulation of three of the four stacks using high performance structural composites saturated in an epoxy matrix. The installation took less than two months, and received multiple awards within the Historical Preservation and Concrete Construction industry.

The World's Largest Boots @ North Star Mall

The shopping center is a well-known city landmark for its Texas-sized cowboy boots, created by Texas artist Bob "Daddy-O" Wade, that are located along the mall's Loop I-410 frontage. Dubbed the "Worlds Largest Boots", they once were installed at a restaurant down the street from the White House in D.C.

Woodlawn Lake

Woodlawn Lake was the dream of real estate developers in the 1880s who wanted to build West End, a residential subdivision on San Antonio's rural west side. It was George W. Russ, president of the Rhode Island-based West End Town Company, who saw great potential in the flat pasture on Alazan Creek and made the dream come true. To attract residents, the creek was dammed to create West End Lake, which some reports say was as large as 80 acres. (Today it is about 30 acres.)

Visitors traveled by street car to enjoy what was called "the finest artificial lake in the south." Electric lights (still new at that time) illuminated the lake where visitors danced in an outdoor pavilion and rowed in small boats. In later years there were outdoor movies and vaudeville acts. The lake and surrounding land were privately owned until 1918 when they were deeded to the City. The name was changed to Woodlawn Lake and many improvements and additions were made to the 62-acre park in the next 79 years.

Today, after more than 100 years, Woodlawn Lake remains a popular gathering spot for visitors from throughout San Antonio. Residents use a walking trail daily, fish from the boat dock, swim at the pool, play basketball in the gym, and dance at Bertha Almaguer Dance studio. In the late 1990s the park became the site of the city's annual Fourth of July celebration, complete with fireworks and a parade. It continues to draw enormous crowds each year.