San Antonio History and Area Attractions


History of San Antonio and the Alamo


1519 Spain claims the region comprising the present state of Texas.
 
1691 Site of San Antonio visited by Franciscan friar on the feast of St Anthony and named San Antonio de Padua in his honor.
 
1718 Presidio San Antonio de Bexar and Mission San Antonio de Antonio de Valero {The Alamo} are established on the San Antonio River. May 1, 1718 is recognized as San Antonio's birthday!
 
1724 Following a severe storm, San Antonio de Valero is moved a short distance north to it’s present location.
 
1754 Construction started on the present Alamo chapel.
 
1793 Mission Valero is the first Texas mission to be closed. Its lands are divided up among the surviving convert Indian families.
 
1801 The Second Company of San Carlos del Alamo de Parras occupies the Mission Valero as a garrison. Thus the name “ The Alamo “ .
 
1812 Mexico wins independence from Spain. San Antonio under the rule of Mexico.
 
1822 Stephen F. Austin brings the first 300 Anglo families to help Mexico settle Texas.

1824 Mexican constitution promises Texas statehood.
 
1834 Following a series of revolutions Santa Anna is elected president and starts to centralize the Mexican government.
 
1835 First shots of Texas revolt fired at Gonzales. By December, Texian forces have captured Goliad and San Antonio.
 
1836 Santa Anna invades Texas. Texas declares independence. Siege and Battle of the Alamo.

1836 Battle of the Alamo from February 24 to March 6 - 183 defenders lose their lives to Santa Anna’s troops.

1836 Santa Anna defeated at San Jacinto on April 21.
 
1846 After being an independent republic for nine years, Texas annexed to the United States. War between United States and Mexico.
 
1850 U.S. Army repairs the Alamo. First roof and now famous hump erected over chapel facade.
 
1861 War between the States. Alamo used by Confederate Army.
 
1876 Ft Sam Houston constructed.
 
1877 Railroad arrives in San Antonio.
 
1888 Alamo chapel having been used as a warehouse is sold by Catholic Church to the State of Texas.
 
1905 State of Texas grants custodianship of the Alamo to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.


Things to do in San Antonio


Area Shopping  
·         LaCantera Mall 
·         North Star Mall 
·         Rivercenter 
·         Rolling Oaks Mall 
·         Ingram Park Mall  
·         Market Square 
·         Quarry Market   
·         South Park Mall 
·         Prime Outlets 
·         Tanger Outlet Mall 
          The Forum
          The RIM
          Historic Pearl
   
  
Golf
·         Canyon Springs 
·         La Cantera    
·         Quarry 
·         Silver Horn  
Nearby
·         San Antonio Attractions  
·         Riverwalk 
·         Downtown  
·         Riverwalk Boat Rides 
·         SA Stock & Rodeo Show 
·         Fiesta  
·         San Fernando Cathedral 
·         Witte Museum 
·         The Alamo 
·         SA Zoo & Acquarium 
·         Sea World 
·         Six Flags 
·         Majestic & Empire Theatres 
·         SA Children's Museum 
·         SA Museum of Art 
·         Sunset Station 
·         Splashtown 
          Tower of the Americas  
          SA Botanical Gardens   
Not Too Far Away
·         Schlitterbahn 
·         Natural Bridge Wildlife 
·         Natural Bridge Caverns 
          Cascade Caverns
          Bandera   
·         Fredricksburg 
·         Port Aransas  
·         Cave Without a Name 
·         USS Lexington 
·         Corpus Christi 
·         Mustang Island 
·         Medina Lake 
·         Lyndon Johnson Historical Park 
·         King Ranch 
·         Enchanted Springs Ranch 
·         Texas State Aquarium 
·         Historic Gruene 
·         Rockport-Fulton  
          South Texas Botanical Gardens  
          Lost Maples 


The following is from Wikipedia - see Creative Commons Attribution below.


The City of San Antonio is the second-largest city in the state of Texas and the seventh-largest city in the United States with a population of 1.4 million. The city is the seat of Bexar County. Located in the American Southwest and the northern part of South Texas, San Antonio is the center of Tejano culture and Texas tourism. The city is characteristic of other Southwest urban centers in which there are sparsely populated areas and a low density rate outside of the city. It was the fourth-fastest growing large city in the nation from 2000 to 2006 and the fifth-fastest-growing from 2007 to 2008. The San Antonio–New Braunfels metropolitan area has a population of nearly 2.1 million based on the 2009 U.S. Census estimate, making it the 28th-largest metropolitan area in the U.S and third in Texas.

The city was named for the Portuguese St. Anthony, whose feast day is on June 13, when a Spanish expedition stopped in the area in 1691. Famous for Spanish missions, the Alamo, the River Walk, the Tower of the Americas, the Alamo Bowl, and host to Sea World and Six Flags Fiesta Texas theme parks, the city is visited by approximately 26 million tourists per year according to the San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau - there are plenty of shopping choices and other things to do. After a move to San Antonio, you will quickly discover the four-time NBA champion San Antonio Spurs and the annual San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, one of the largest in the country.

San Antonio has a strong military presence — it is home to Fort Sam Houston, Lackland Air Force Base, Randolph Air Force Base, and Brooks City-Base, with Camp Bullis and Camp Stanley outside the city. Kelly Air Force Base operated out of San Antonio until 2001, when the airfield was transferred over to Lackland AFB and the remaining portions of the base became Port San Antonio, an industrial/business park. San Antonio is home to five Fortune 500 companies and to the South Texas Medical Center, the only medical research and care provider in the South Texas region. Relocating to San Antonio can mean many job and career opportunities.

San Antonio falls near the western edge of the humid subtropical climate zone. Its weather is alternately dry or humid depending on prevailing winds, turning hot in the summer, warm to cool winters subject to descending northern cold fronts in the winter with cool to cold nights, and comfortably warm and rainy in the spring and fall. San Antonio receives about a dozen sub-freezing nights each year, occasionally (about once every couple of winters) seeing some sort of wintry precipitation (i.e. sleet/freezing rain), but accumulation and snow itself is not very common. Many winters may pass without any freezing precipitation at all. A move to San Antonio includes some great weather. According to the National Weather Service, there have been 31 instances of snowfall (a trace or more) in the city in the past 122 years, for an average of about once every four years. However, a decade or more may pass between snowfalls. In San Antonio, July and August tie for the average warmest months with an average high of 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 °C). The highest temperature ever to be recorded was 111 °F (44 °C) on September 5, 2000. The average coolest month is January. The lowest recorded temperature ever was 0 °F (−18 °C) on January 31, 1949. May, June, and October have quite a bit of precipitation. For the last 135 years, the average annual precipitation has been 29.05 inches (738 mm), with a maximum of 52.28 inches (1,328 mm) and a minimum of 10.11 inches (256.8 mm) in one year.

San Antonio is a popular tourist destination. The jewel of the city is the River Walk, which meanders through the downtown area. Lined with numerous shops, bars, and restaurants, as well as the Arneson River Theater, this attraction is transformed into an impressive festival of lights during the Christmas and New Year holiday period, and is suffused with the local sounds of folklorico and flamenco music during the summer, particularly during celebrations such as the Fiesta Noche del Rio. Also based along the River Walk is the newly restored Aztec On The River, the only surviving exotic-themed movie palace in Texas.

The Alamo, located nearby, is Texas' top tourist attraction, while the River Walk is the second most visited attraction. Sea World, located 16 miles west of downtown, is the number 3 attraction. Also, there is the very popular Six Flags Fiesta Texas.

The downtown area also features Cathedral of San Fernando, The Majestic Theatre, HemisFair Park (home of the Tower of the Americas and the Institute of Texan Cultures), La Villita, El Mercado, the Spanish Governor's Palace, and the historic Menger Hotel. On the northern side of the Alamo complex, beside the Emily Morgan Hotel, is the San Antonio Cavalry Museum, which features cavalry artifacts and exhibits and is frequented by local re-enactors.

The Fairmount Hotel, built in 1906 and San Antonio's second oldest hotel, is in the Guinness World Records as one of the heaviest buildings ever moved intact. It was placed in its new location, three blocks south of the Alamo, over four days in 1985, and cost $650,000 to move.

Unlike most large cities in the U.S., San Antonio is not completely surrounded by independent suburban cities, and under Texas law it exercises extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) over much of the surrounding unincorporated land, including directing growth and zoning. It pursues an aggressive annexation policy and opposes the creation of other municipalities within its ETJ. Nearly three-fourths of its current land area has been annexed since 1960. In the 2000's the city has annexed several long narrow corridors along major thoroughfares in outlying areas to facilitate eventual annexation of growth developing along the routes. In a move to expand, the city planned to annex nearly forty additional square miles by 2009. In May 2010, the San Antonio agreed to release thousands of acres of land in its extraterritorial jurisdiction along Interstate 10 to Schertz. The agreement releases a total of 3,486 acres of San Antonio's ETJ lands north of I-10 to Schertz. The ETJ lands are in an area bordered by FM 1518 to the west, Lower Seguin Road to the north, Cibolo Creek to the east and I-10 to the south.

Involuntary annexation is a controversial issue in those parts of unincorporated Bexar County affected by it. Residents, attracted to the outlying areas by lower taxes and affordable real estate values, often see annexation as a mechanism to increase property tax rates (primarily driven by school district taxes) without a corresponding improvement in services such as police and fire protection, while the city regards its annexation policy as essential to its overall prosperity.

San Antonio hosts over 100,000 students across its 31 higher-education facilities which include The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, the University of Texas at San Antonio, Texas A&M University–San Antonio, and the Alamo Community College District. Some of the private schools include St. Mary's University, Our Lady of the Lake University, University of the Incarnate Word, Trinity University, and Wayland Baptist University. The San Antonio Public Library serves all of these institutions along with the 17 school districts within San Antonio.

A move to San Antonio comes with many educational opportunities. The city is also home to more than 30 private schools and charter schools. These schools include: Central Catholic Marianist High School, Incarnate Word High School, Saint Mary's Hall, The Atonement Academy, Antonian College Preparatory High School, San Antonio Academy, Holy Cross High School, Providence High School, The Carver Academy, Keystone School, TMI — The Episcopal School of Texas, St. Anthony Catholic High School, Lutheran High School of San Antonio, Jubilee High School and Jubilee Academy. Check out our schools.

Relocating to San Antonio can be a great adventure. I can say that from firsthand experience as I relocated here in 2004.

What are salaries like in San Antonio? This may help: www.salary.com

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio

Recommend user independently verify any information contained herein.

Creative Commons Attribution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License