We marched five leagues over a fine country with broad plains, the most beautiful in all of New Spain.

We camped on the banks of an arroyo.

This I called San Antonio de Pagua because we reached it on his feast day.

General Domingo Terand de los Rios June 13, 1691.

Welcome to a new history of old San Antonio.

I'm Brandon Seale.

The goal of this series is to cover the history of San Antonio from its founding 300 years ago

until the arrival of the railroad 150 or so years later,

that point in time when San Antonio would begin to properly enter the

fold of North American cities. Until that moment, and down to the present day, frankly, San Antonio

was one of the most isolated and interesting communities in the Americas, a crossroads, of course,

but also the birthplace of a unique culture whose influence would spread far beyond the limits

of that first little settlement on the Spanish frontier. On June 13th, 1691, General Domingo Terrand de los Rios would become the first to say the name

San Antonio at that particular spot where the Quawean Desert collided with the Texas Hill Country

and the westernmost fingers of the East Texas woodlands.

Arriving from the south, with the hills of the Balconi's escarpment framing the creeks

draining into the San Antonio River Basin, it might have felt something like walking onto the hills of the Balconi's escarpment framing the creeks draining into the San Antonio River basin,

it might have felt something like walking onto the stage of a great lush amphitheater,

particularly when taken in contrast to the harsh scrubland that he and his 63-man expedition had just crossed.

But it wasn't an empty stage onto which they marched.

Even 150 years later, travelers would not fail to comment on the diversity of wildlife that the region supported.

Buffalo, bears, lions, oscillates, coyotes, antelope, havelinas, dove, quail, ducks, alligators, fish, and of course rattlesnakes.

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