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Few American cities enjoy the likes of San Antonio's visual links with its dramatic past. The Alamo and four other Spanish missions, recently marked as a UNESCO World Heritage site, are the most obvious but there are a host of landmarks and folkways that have survived over the course of nearly three centuries that still lend San Antonio an "odd and antiquated foreignness." Adding to the charm of the nation's seventh largest city is the San Antonio River, saved to become a winding linear park through the heart of downtown and beyond and a world model for sensitive urban development. San Antonio's heritage has not been preserved by accident. The wrecking balls and headlong development that accompanied progress in nineteenth-century San Antonio roused an indigenous historic preservation movement—the first west of the Mississippi River to become effective. Its thrust has increased since the mid-1920s with the pioneering work of the San Antonio Conservation Society. In Saving San Antonio, Texas historian Lewis Fisher peels back the myths surrounding more than a century of preservation triumphs and failures to reveal a lively mosaic that portrays the saving of San Antonio's cultural and architectural soul. The process, entertaining in the telling, has reverberated throughout the United States and provided significant lessons for the built environments and economies of cities everywhere.
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower—and a Texas native—takes us on a journey through the most controversial state in America. • “Beautifully written…. Essential reading [for] anyone who wants to understand how one state changed the trajectory of the country.” —NPR Texas is a red state, but the cities are blue and among the most diverse in the nation. Oil is still king, but Texas now leads California in technology exports. Low taxes and minimal regulation have produced extraordinary growth, but also striking income disparities. Texas looks a lot like the America that Donald Trump wants to create. Bringing together the historical and the contemporary, the political and the personal, Texas native Lawrence Wright gives us a colorful, wide-ranging portrait of a state that not only reflects our country as it is, but as it may become—and shows how the battle for Texas’s soul encompasses us all.
San Antonio is in the national spotlight as one of the fastest growing and most dynamic emerging major cities in America. Yet local lore has it that every Texan has two hometowns—his own and San Antonio. The Alamo City's charm, colorful surroundings, and diverse cultures combine to make it one of the most interesting places in Texas and the nation. In San Antonio Uncovered, Mark Rybczyk examines some of the city's internationally known legends and lore (including ghost stories) and takes a nostalgic look at landmarks that have disappeared. He also introduces some of the city’s characters and unusual features, debunks local myths, and corrects common misconceptions. Rybczyk embraces San Antonio's peculiarities by chronicling the cross-country journey of the World’s Largest Boots to their home in front of North Star Mall; the origins of the Frito corn chip and chewing gum; the annual Cornyation of King Anchovy; and Dwight Eisenhower's stint as the football coach at St Mary’s University. This completely updated, new edition of San Antonio Uncovered highlights San Antonio as a modern, thriving city with the feel of a small town that sees beauty in the old and fights to save it, even something as seemingly insignificant as an old Humble Oil Station; and its diverse inhabitants as those who appreciate the blending of the old and the new at the Tobin Center and fight to save what’s left of the Hot Wells Hotel.
This lavishly-illustrated book is the definitive guide and reference work for the 100-block Monte Vista National Historic District, two miles north of downtown San Antonio. It includes 139 illustrations (some in color), maps, notes, bibliography and both a general index and an index of architects and their works. Monte Vista survives nearly intact from the city's Gilded Age--1890 to 1930--when newly-prosperous residents built the finest neighborhood of the era remaining in Texas. The district's vintage homes, both elaborate and modest, were designed by more than two dozen distinguished architects in an unusual variety of styles, from Queen Anne to Prairie to Tudor to Spanish Colonial Revival. In addition to describing the finest landmark homes block by block, San Antonio's Monte Vista deals with the dynamics of developers and the lifestyles of original residents, and of their servants as well.
Brackenridge Park began its life as a heavily wooded, bucolic driving park at the turn of the twentieth century. Over the next 120 years it evolved into the sprawling, multifaceted jewel San Antonians enjoy today, home to the San Antonio Zoo, the state’s first public golf course, the Japanese Tea Garden, the Sunken Garden Theater, and the Witte Museum. The land that Brackenridge Park occupies, near the San Antonio River headwaters, has been reinvented many times over. People have gathered there since prehistoric times. Following the city’s founding in 1718, the land was used to channel river water into town via a system of acequias; its limestone cliffs were quarried for building materials; and it was the site of a Civil War tannery, headquarters for two military camps, a plant nursery, and a racetrack. The park continues to be a site of national acclaim even while major sections have fallen into disrepair. The more than 400 acres that constitute San Antonio’s flagship urban park are made up of half a dozen parcels stitched together over time to create an uncommon varied landscape. Uniquely San Antonian, Brackenridge is full of romantic wooded walks and whimsical public spaces drawing tourists, locals, wildlife, and waterfowl. Extensively researched and illustrated with some two hundred archival photographs and vintage postcards, Brackenridge: San Antonio’s Acclaimed Urban Park is the first comprehensive look at the fascinating story of this unique park and how its diverse layers evolved to create one of the city’s foremost gathering places.
This award winning book is an environmental history of the role of water and water management in the region surrounding San Antonio and and the San Antonio River Valley.
For a city that predates the Declaration of Independence, San Antonio has a youthful vibrancy that belies its age. The Alamo City may be the seventh-largest municipality in the United States, but it still manages to convey a small-town vibe. Friendly locals are happy to share their favorite spots for romance, history, arts, culture, nature, food, drinks, and más! With 100 Things to Do in San Antonio Before You Die as your guide, you’ll get a taste of the same ciudad that visitors and natives have come to love. Stroll down the picturesque River Walk that now spans fifteen miles from north of downtown to the World Heritage Site missions in the south, or take in one of the city’s awesome museums. Cheer on San Antonio’s own professional basketball team, lovingly nicknamed Los Spurs. From breakfast tacos through evening margaritas, a fiesta awaits. It’s difficult to find a day in San Antonio without some kind of celebration. Local author and blogger Dr. Denise Barkis Richter invites fellow tourists to join the party that is San Antonio. With her book in hand, you’ll have the tools you need to enjoy America’s best town. ¡Bienvenidos! Welcome!
San Antonio boasts one of the country’s fastest-growing metropolitan regions, thanks to visionary personalities, key politicians, a vibrant citizenry, and a bit of luck. In this lively behind-the-scenes account, former mayor Nelson Wolff focuses on four major developments — the San Antonio Spurs’ AT&T Arena, Toyota, the PGA Village, and the River Walk expansion — that transformed the city. This intriguing, highly readable journey through the contemporary life of one American city offers hope to all cities striving to recreate themselves.
Illustrated photographs and narratives describe the history, restoration, and continued development of San Antonio's River Walk.