The "Villa de Bejar" was founded by Spanish explorers on May 5, 1718, by then Governor Martin Alarcon, at the headwaters of the San Pedro Creek.

The mission San Antonio de Valero was established on the east bank of the creek and a presidio was 3/4 of a league downstream.

[2] In 1536, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, a shipwrecked Spanish explorer who was enslaved by Native Americans for a period, visited the interior of what would later be called Texas.

Several expeditions to the region of Texas, an area of great strategic importance to the Spanish crown, were organized from the Convent of Querétaro.

In 1691, a group of Spanish explorers and missionaries came upon the river and Native American settlement (located in the area of present-day La Villita) on June 13.

As it was the feast day of Saint Anthony of Padua, Italy, they named the place and river San Antonio in his honor.

In 1716, Fray Antonio de Olivares wrote to the Viceroy of New Spain, telling their hopes and plans for the future mission, and urged him to send families of settlers to found a town.

Finally, the perseverance of Fray Antonio was answered and the Viceroyalty gave formal approval for the mission in late 1716, assigning responsibility for its establishment to Martín de Alarcón, the governor of Coahuila y Tejas.

[4] It was designed to protect the system of missions and civilian settlements in central Texas and to ensure Spanish claims in the region against possible encroachment from other European powers.

As settlers concentrated around the presidio complex and mission, began to form the town of Bejar or Bexar, convert it in the cornerstone of Spanish Texas.

The operating complex was completed with the construction of the first ditch of Texas (Acequia Madre de Valero),[5] 6 miles long, built to irrigate 400 hectares and supply the inhabitants of the new settlements.

Acequia Madre de Valero ran from the area currently known as Brackenridge Park and southward to what is now Hemisfair Plaza and South Alamo Street.

[4] On February 14, 1719, the Marquess of San Miguel de Aguayo made a report to the king of Spain proposing that 400 families be transported from the Canary Islands, Galicia, or Habana to populate the province of Texas.

The group joined the military community that had existed since 1718, forming the first government of the city and taking as headquarters building Presidio of San Antonio de Béjar.

After the failure of Spanish missions to the north of the city, San Antonio became the farthest northeastern extension of the Hispanic culture of the Valley of Mexico.

Las Casas's rule lasted for 39 days until San Antonio subdeacon Juan Manuel Zambrano led a counterinsurgency which restored Spanish control over the city.

[9] The Texan theater of the war re-escalated late the following year, and on April 1st, 1813, a filibuster expedition consisting of over 800 Mexican revolutionaries and American volunteers captured the city from Salcedo and declared their independence from Spain.

After recapturing proceeded to brutally occupy San Antonio for nearly a year, executing rebels, confiscating property, and imprisoning residents.

After Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, the depopulation and economic havoc wrought by Arredondo's punitive campaign led the Mexican government to invite Anglo American via Empresarios such as Stephen F. Austin, to settle in Texas in areas east and northeast of San Antonio.

In a series of battles the Anglo Texans, who called themselves Texians, supported by a significant number of Tejano allies, initially succeeded in forcing the Mexican military to retreat from Texas.

After putting down resistance in other regions of Mexico, in the spring of 1836, Santa Anna led a Mexican army back into Texas and marched on San Antonio.

Sam Houston, believing that San Antonio could not be defended against a determined effort by the regular Mexican army, called for the Texan forces to abandon the city.

The Guenther Flour Mills, Gebhardt's Chili Powder, and Mahncke Park, are local institutions that recall San Antonio's German heritage.

With ethnic minorities and the lower classes of San Antonio and Texas society unable to vote, the Republican Party lost its competitive edge in most areas of the state.

The business promoter "Bet a Million" Gates chose San Antonio to demonstrate the value of his barbed wire in the herding of cattle.

Bolstered by the construction of its first railroad in 1877, and a horrible hurricane that had struck Galveston, San Antonio reemerged as the state's largest city in 1900.

San Antonio was often frequented by gun fighters and robbers of the Old West and is particularly associated with Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid members of the Wild Bunch, who often used Fannie Porter's brothel as a hideout.

Standing on the southwest side of the intersection of Houston and Soledad Streets, this building was a massive quadrangle built of adobe around a central courtyard in the typical Mexican style.

Like many municipalities in the Southern United States, [14] San Antonio has had steady population growth since the late twentieth century.