The Village of San Antonio de Bexar was founded by Spanish colonists who also established seven missions along the San Antonio River, the most well-known being the Misión de San Antonio de Valero (today known as the Alamo today) in 1718. Of these settlements, the San Francisco and the Alamo missions were central to the formation of the settlement of San Antonio. The village of San Antonio de Bexar was designed according to the principles of Spanish Colonial towns of that era: characteristically, open plazas surrounded by adobe houses, a cathedral, and a Governor’s palace in a classical grid plan with the San Antonio River and the San Pedro Creek.[1]
The growth of San Antonio remained relatively constant until the 19th century, after which expansion progressed along the main access roads leading to the city. Most of the development in the 19th century occurred eastwards and westwards of the center along the bend of the San Antonio River to the south, and to the Highlands in the north. After the Second World War, San Antonio’s street grids increasingly followed a suburban street layout.[2] Concurrent with these suburban developments, expressways built in the post war period. These expressways currently surround downtown San Antonio, contributing to the development of large parking lots and an increasingly auto-dependent city. Over time expressways have reduced property values in adjacent areas, while the city has been modified to accommodate larger flows of automobile traffic. Many urban spaces were converted to auto-oriented uses, such as parking lots, garages, auto shops, and gas stations.[3]
The Fair
The 1968 Hemisfair World’s Fair was planned to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the founding of San Antonio, as such one of its focal points was the birth of the city and its heritage. The theme of the fair was “The Confluence of Civilizations in the Americas,’ with more than 30 nations displaying pavilions and about 6.3 million visitors in total between April 6th and October 6th 1968[4].
Currently, Hemisfair Park is approximately 78 acres in size.[5] As part of the federal government’s urban renewal program, the land used for the fair was acquired mainly through eminent domain and the site was heavily redeveloped from the funds provided by the federal government.[6] Originally this area was occupied by over 1,000 buildings, which were primarily residential. Construction of the fair led to the demolition of more than one hundred existing buildings and historical structures as part of the urban renewal process in San Antonio. Today, only 22 original buildings and 2 stabilized ruins survive from the pre-1968 World’s Fair period, and of these 24 only 18 remain on their original sites.[7] While moving through the site, there is a clear contrast in architectural styles between pre-1968 structures and buildings constructed for HemisFair ‘68. Buildings built during and after 1968 are much larger in size and use different building materials.[8] The River Walk (Paseo del Rio) was extended to connect the Hemisfair Park site in 1968. It further extended again for the Convention Center Expansion in 2001 and the park’s existing lagoon.
Continue to Existing Conditions
Footnotes
[1] Texas State Historical Association. ‘Hemisfair ‘68’. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/lkh01
[2] UTSA Center for Cultural Sustainability (2011) Inventory, Assessment and Evaluation of Historic Resources in HemisFair Park, San Antonio: UTSA Center for Cultural Sustainability.
[3] Ibid
[4] Ibid
[5] Ibid
[6] Caragonne, A. (September, 1969). Urban Development San Antonio. M. Arch. Thesis, Cornell University.
[7] U.S. Census Bureau. State and County Quickfacts 2010 – San Antonio (city) Texas. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/48/4865000.html
[8] Ibid
[9] Ibid
[10] Ibid