Starting with a visit to the San Antonio Missions historical park, following that, in about 20 minutes well hear about the role of the city played in early aviation. In 40 minutes, visit one of the citys most recognizable features and biggest attractions. The historic river walk. Later, a trip to the governors palace. One of the oldest buildings in the city, dating back to the founding. We begin our special feature at san jose, one of the remaining missions in san antonio. Welcome to spanish governors palace. You are looking at the last vigil remnant. The original thing was created in the seventies, it was the residents for the captain. What were looking at today is really a romanticized version of what this building would have been. Again, it was the military headquarters. And dina, one of our first preservationists here in san antonio, worked very hard when she identified this building as the original garrison and deserving. It its been many Different Things overtime, and its been added on to over time as well. The original house was billed with bricks in 1772, based on the letter the governor wrote to the king in june of that. Year talked about 27,000 bricks they needed to make, and 40 additional laborers they needed to hire to build the compound. You can see behind the wall, that is the original from 1722. The arctic found this when they did the restoration and decided to open up so people could see the original wall. This was the captains home, his office, cooking was done outside of course. And will go this way next. This room and the entrance, and the room to your left, was added in 1749 by eight spanish captain. When the rooms were added there was no door, the door was cut, the captain would walk out of his front door walk up and go to his office. He kept his home and off a separate. Visitors didnt have to go around to a different room. This was the main living area for the family. When these rooms were added on to the, house the captain moved all of this work items from his first little house to his new office on the end. That room became the only bedroom in the house, during the spanish era. This was again the living, room dining room, the king was still done outside because of the fire hazard. This is was the captains new office in 1749. He took care of business. Captains were also merchants. They would have items taken to mexico and sold them to the families who lived. Here he would probably have some of those items on display here. The breeders were used to heat the rooms. They were put on the pan, covered lightly with ash to keep from smoking, but it would still let the heat up to warm the room. Of course it wouldnt be as toasty as were used to, but better than without it. Okay, this direction. This room was added on in the late 1700s. Sometime between 1763 when the captain died, and 1804 when the building was sold to captain perez. This was at an on when the original captain and his son owned the building. We believe this room was built here to give the captains more space to display the goods that they were bringing up to sell to the families that lived here. They sold textiles, some leather goods, things they couldnt make here in town they would have brought up from mexico. Preserving these structures is incredibly important. Its not just about the history. I think its the story people are interested in. Like i said, this building, not a whole lot of it is very original. Little in fact. But it tells a story. People are able to cut them in and get an idea of what it would have been, like and also learn a little bit about sent antonio overtime. The story of preservation here incentive antonio. How it may not always be accurate. It may be romanticized, perhaps that what people imagined. But it gets people thinking. Its important for visitors, and locals to just realize what a rich American History we have had. Our look at san antonio continues as we hear from historian Lewis Fischer about the settlement of the city. We are standing near the Geographical Center of san antonio, texas, were in front of whats called the spanish governors palace, in a town that was actually set up here due to the conflict between two european empires, france and spain in the 18th century. Spain of course had established itself well in latin america, southern america, and mexico. Southern mexico is very important to spin. France was over the northeast in louisiana, and it reached up to the northern border along the red river, where it was causing some trouble with the indians, and looking straight a clubs the empty reaches of texas, in this architects and elsewhere. The spaniards knew that they needed to have some kind of, defense in 16 13, 200 years ago, san antonio was established here. The first challenge they faced the first thing the priest did when they set up a Community Like san antonio was set up a church. Second was a butter system. In texas you have rivers, but you dont have a lot of green, fertile areas to farm from. To address that they drew from their experience in spain which had come from arabia, which had actually come from a roman empire. A system of irrigation. They werent just irrigation ditches, but they furnished drinking water, and water for the cattle and everybody else. Everybody used the same water and didnt know anything about the terms. And then they wondered why they had epidemics. But they figured it out. So and san antonio was selected in large part because it had two major sources of water upstream. The water of the san untold river, and send pedro creek. From those two places engineers very carefully, because of the land was rather flat, they were able to devise a system where half dozen seekers that came through the channels follow the line of gravity into what was san antonio, and the river continued to flow. San antonio used that for more than 100 years, it wasnt until the end of the 19th century that the system was no longer in. Use one still serves to missions. They are used by area farmers to from their crops. Religion has a visible role in the community, in addition to what you dont see. You have the main plaza. The cathedral that started in 1781 as the parish church. We also have five missions in san antonio, which are now named a World Heritage site. We have our First Mission the alamo, which was right here in the city of san antonio. Then a few years later there was a Second Mission established, mission san jose, which has been restored rather elaborately, and was the largest and most successful mission. Three of the missions actually moved from texas to south antonio. They are scattered along the river south of downtown. The largest is michigan, the largest is the wheels have to smaller ones, san francisco, and san juan. This is the largest grouping of Spanish Missions in the united states. Texas was very desirable for its geography and location. As locked border lands are, the control went back and forth between various governmental and to. Tease i would suspect that san antonios got whiplash in the early 19th century. There were six different governments in san antonio. First up until the 18 twenties, san antonio was under the overall control of spin. That in 1820 when there was a revolution in which mexico took control. Then the revolution of texas in 1836 related to the elmo. Then we have the republic of texas. Then in 1845 texas was annexed by the united states. In 1861, we had the confederacy charge, and four years later we were back to the united states. But probably, the single factor that shapes san antonios character and appearance at very being was its isolation on the texas frontier. The 100 miles from the texas coast. The only way to reach san antonio was through the texas coast. That took a couple of days when it wasnt raining and there was no might. It was a difficult city to get to, until san antonio finally got a railroad in 1977. At which point, san antonio began to explode. The Tourism Business was one of the first that took off. San antonio had been a familiar topic of magazines and other publications. Reporters love to come to san antonio. What it looked like, theres a great awareness of this, this did not entirely pleas people in houston. Where the railroad came from. After the railroad came, a newspaper reported that where the people went to san antonio for a day to be around and come back and tell everyone how where the city looked. It did. It was a big attraction, then its still a big attraction now. San antonio probably three hours for the mexico border, but the