San Antonio Texas Hotels
Hotels in San Antonio are often required for tourists who need accommodation in the city. Some tourists may want to have accommodation in the city so they have holiday in the city. Some tourists may want a cheap or luxury hotel in the city. Some may want a hotel that can offer good views of the city. Some visitors to the city may want hotels that have good access to transport.
San Antonio is one of the largest city's in the state of Texas and in the United States. Located in South Texas, the city is a cultural gateway into the American Southwest. San Antonio is the seat of Bexar County.
Famous for its River Walk, the Alamo, Tejano culture, and home to the SeaWorld San Antonio and Six Flags Fiesta Texas theme parks which attract many tourists. San Antonio is also home to the first museum of modern art in Texas, the Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, as well as one of the more successful National Basketball Association teams in league history, the San Antonio Spurs.
Because of its status as a historic urban center, the architecture and layout of San Antonio are more traditionally urban than other cities in Texas, such as Dallas and Austin, which have developed in the last half century.
san antonio texas hotels
Native Americans originally lived in the San Antonio River Valley in the San Pedro Springs area, calling the vicinity Yanaguana, meaning refreshing waters.
In 1536, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, a shipwrecked captive of Native Americans, visited the interior of what would later be called Texas. He saw and described the river later to be named the San Antonio.
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, the feast day of Saint Anthony of Padova, Italy and named the place and river "San Antonio" in his honor.
In 1716, The Spanish Council of War approved a site on the San Antonio River for construction of a fortified presidio (fort). The Domingo Ramón expedition, accompanied by the trader St. Denis from Louisiana (who had come to the site two years previous) established a presidio on the river. That council also approved a request by Father Olivares to establish a Catholic Mission at the site.
In 1718, Martin de Alarcón, then Governor of Texas, reinforced the presidio and the ten soldiers and their families were recognized officially as the beginning of the villa. Alarcón named the presidio San Antonio de Béjar in honor of the Duke of Béjar, in Spain, the viceroy's brother, who died what was considered a hero's death defending Budapest from the Ottoman Empire in 1686 (This is in dispute because there is no such saint).
That same year, the Mission of San Francisco de Solano was moved from the Rio Grande to merge with Mission San Antonio de Padua. Father Olivares renamed his merged mission Mission San Antonio de Valero. The presidio, the villa and the mission comprised the municipality named San Antonio de los Llanos (of the Plains) by Governor Alarcón. One year later, in 1719, Mission San Antonio moved to its second site on the east bank near the present day St. Joseph's Church on Commerce. (The names are in dispute because there are no such saints and only a Pope can name saints.
In 1721, The Marquis de Aguayo moved the presidio San Antonio de Béjar to its present site on the Plaza de Armas, where permanent quarters were constructed for the soldiers. In 1726 the official settlement population was 200, including 45 military and their families.
The Mission San Antonio was moved to its third and final site on Alamo Plaza in 1724 because of hurricane flooding at the previous location.
At eleven o'clock on the morning of March 9, 1731, sixteen families from the Canary Islands, often referred to as the Canary Islanders, arrived at the Presidio of San Antonio de Bexar in the Province of Texas. By royal decree of the King of Spain, they founded La Villa de San Fernando and established the first civil government in Texas. The Marquis of Casafuerte, Viceroy of Spain, bestowed upon each Canary Island family titles of nobility. Many descendants of these first settlers still reside in San Antonio.
The
Battle of the Alamo took place in 1836, and eventually the town would grow to
encompass the mission where the battle took place, a mile to the east. This was
where 189 defenders, both Mexicans and settlers, were besieged in the old mission
against 4,000 Mexican troops led by Antonio López de Santa Anna for 13
days. The defenders were all killed in the final assault on the garrison. Some
recent evidence suggests there might have been a few prisoners, Colonel Davy Crockett
perhaps among them, that were executed after the battle had ended. The cry Remember
the Alamo became the rallying point of the Texas Revolution. Texas independence
was finally attained at the subsequent Battle of San Jacinto the following April.
Find a Villa from Across Europe
Grand World Villas - Find a Villa from anywhere in the world
Grand Global Villas - Find Villas from Around the Globe
An Index with links to almost all our sites
Holiday
to - Great places to go on Holiday to
Holiday
to 2 - More Great places to go on Holiday to
Holiday to 3 - More places to go on Holiday to
Holiday to 4 - More places to go on Holiday to
Find some Cottages in Britain or Ireland and the world
Find a Cottage in Britain or Ireland
Find more Cottages in Britain, Ireland, North America or the world