The San Antonio River crossing — and why a mission and a fort were planted here together.
We cross the San Antonio River along here, and this green, winding river is the whole reason for everything you're seeing. The Spanish always built their missions and presidios in pairs and along the rivers — the mission to gather and convert the Native peoples and work the land, and the presidio, the fort, to protect the mission and hold the territory for the crown. Water, souls, and soldiers: that was the formula, and here on this river bend they set down one of each, a mile apart, guarding the road that ran from the Rio Grande up to the other Texas missions and down to the coast.
For a hundred years this was a Spanish, and then a Mexican, frontier — remote, hard, and far from anywhere. And then, in the eighteen thirties, the world changed, as American settlers poured into Texas and rose up against Mexico, and this quiet fort on the river suddenly stood square in the path of a revolution.
Photo: William L. Farr · CC BY 4.0
