since 2011, we have been to more than 200 communities across the nation. like many americans, our staff is staying close to home due to the coronavirus. next, a look at one of our cities tour visits. thee are standing near geographical center of san antonio, texas, in front of what is called the spanish governor's palace, in a town that was actually set up here due to the conflicts between two european empires, france and spain, in the 18th century. spain had of course established itself well in latin america and south america and in mexico, and northern mexico was especially important to spain because of silver mines. france was to the northeast in louisiana and reached up to the northern borders of new spain along the red river, where it

was causing some trouble with the indians and looking straight across the empty reaches of mines.nto the silver the spaniards knew they had to have some sort of defense, and became upon san antonio. 1618, 302 years ago, san antonio was established here. they facechallenge was getting water. didfirst thing the priests when they set up a community like san antonio was to set up a church, but the second thing they did was to set up system. in texas, you had rivers but you don't have a lot of green, fertile areas, there were too far away from them. they drew from their experience in spain, to come from arabia, which had come from the roman

empire, a series of irrigation. they were not just irrigation ditches but they furnished drinking water and water for cattle and everybody else. everybody used the same water, nobody knew anything about germs, and then they wondered why they had epidemics. but they figure that out. -- sanonio, who was antonio was selected in part because it had two major sources of water, the headwaters of the san antonio river, and the pedro creek. engineers very carefully, because the land was very flat, they were able to devise a dozen that came through the rivers and followed channels that followed the line of gravity downhill through what became san antonio and back into the river, so the water continued to flow.

system for used that more than 100 years. it wasn't until the end of the 19th century that the system was not in general use, there are still two of them at the spanish which are still used by area farmers to water crops. religion has a very visible role in the community. in addition to what you don't see, you have the cathedral of saint fernando which began as the parish church, but also we have five missions in san antonio which has been named a world heritage site. we have our first mission, the here inhich was right the city of san antonio, and a few years later, there was a second mission established, mission san jose, which has been

andored rather elaborately is the largest, was the largest and most successful mission in texas. three of the missions moved from north texas to san antonio, and they are scattered along the san antonio river south of downtown. the largest is mission largeston, the unrestored church, spanish church in the united states. smaller ones,wo san francisco and san juan capistrano. that gives us five missions, the largest grouping of spanish missions in the united states. texas was very desirable for its as aaphy and location, and

lot of borderlands are, control went and forth between various governmental entities. antoni suspect that san ans got whiplash, there were six different governments. until the 1820's, san antonio was under the overall control of spain. in 1921, there was a revolution in which mexico took control. texas,me the republic of the revolution in 18 d6, -- 1856 related to the alamo. then we had the republic of texas. annexed by the united states. 18 six 21, the confederacy in charge, and four years later, back to the united states. thatbly the single factor shaped san antonio's character and appearance and being was its

isolation on the texas frontier. we are inland, a couple hundred miles from the texas coast, and the only way to reach san antonio was by boxcar from the texas coast, and that's when it was not raining or mud. it was a difficult city to get to come until san antonio finally got a railroad in 1877. at which point, san antonio began to explode. the tourism business was one of the first that took off because san antonio had been a familiar topic of magazines and other publications, periodicals, in the united states. reporters left to come to san antonio and report what it looked like. there is great awareness of this. this did not totally please people in houston, where the railroad came from, and after the railroad came, one newspaper

said hordes of people went to san antonio for a day to people around and then come back and tell everyone how clear -- queer the city was. it was a big attraction then and it is still an attraction now. san antonio is probably three hours from the mexican border aware -- the and mexican border. has been imported long term of immigration. when the mexican revolution began in 1910, there was so much violence that many mexican citizens began crossing the reopening -- rio grande into texas and were settled in refugee camps. tens of thousands of them came to san antonio. for many years, they lived in the poorest centers of town but as the generations went on, they became leading citizens in the community. we had our first hispanic congressman in the 1950's, and

that has helped make san antonio the type of place it is today. think it is important for people to realize as they learn about san antonio, simply to understand what a distinctive ,nd diverse city san antonio is how significant its roots are in history and how much it has contributed to the history of the country. you can watch this and other programs on the history of communities across the country c-span.org/citiestour. this is american history tv, only on c-span3. >> you're watching american history tv. every weekend on c-span3, explore our nation's past. c-span3,history tv, on

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