San Antonio is a city that dates back to Spanish Colonial times. It has gone from a presidio and village on the banks of the San Antonio river known as San Antonio de Bexar to a modern metropolis. In 1731 fifteen families of Canary Islanders invited by the king of Spain, arrived to begin new lives “about a musket shot from the presidio”. My wife proudly traces her ancestry to those families. They are deep roots in the Americas that few non-native people can match.
San Antonio has always been a crossroads of culture and commerce. Texicans, Texians and finally Texans as they came to be called built lives here. Texans were and are as tough a bunch of individualists as can be found anywhere. Revolutions and Indian wars and civil conflicts swept the land over the years but they held fast. When the Texas revolution came they stayed and died but didn’t yield. When Teddy Roosevelt wanted Rough Riders, he rode his horse into a bar next to the Alamo waving his hat asking for volunteers. He got them. That is how legends are born.
