podcasts. >> you're watching american history tv every weekend on c-span3, explore our nation's past, american history tv on c-span3 created by america's cable television companies that today were brought to you by these it was companies who provide american history tv to viewers as a public service. >> the senate arms services committee holds a confirmation hearing for deputy of defense secretary nominee kathleen hicks. watch live on c-span3, online at c-span.org or listen live on the free c-span radio app. >> we're standing near the geographical center of san antonio, texas. we're in front of what's 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 very rich silver mines. france was over to the northeast in louisiana, and it was up -- it reached up to the northern borders along the red river where it was causing some trouble with the indians and looking straight across the empty reaches of texas into the silver mines down in texas and elsewhere. the spaniards knew they had to have some sort of defense, and they came upon san antonio, and so in 1618, 302 years ago, san antonio was established here. the first challenge they faced

was getting water. the first things the priest did when they set up a community like san antonio is to build a church. the second thing they did was to set up a water system and in texas you have rivers but you don't really have a lot of green fertile areas too far away from them. to address that, they drew from their experience in spain which had come from arabia which had actually come from the roman empire, a system of irrigation ditches, and they were not just irrigation ditches, but they also furnished drinking water and water for the cattle and everybody else. everybody used the same water. nobody knew anything about germs, and then they wondered why they had epidemics, but they figured that out. so san antonio was selected in large part because it had two major sources of water upstream. we had the head waters of the

san antonio river, and we had the head waters of san pedro creek. from those places, engineers very carefully -- because this land was rather flat -- they were able to devise a system of a half dozen asake yas which came from those rivers and came through channels that followed the line of gravity downhill through what became san antonio and then back into the river so that the water continued to flow. san antonio used that system for more than 100 years. it wasn't until the end of the 19th century that the system finally was not in general use, but there still are two asake yas at the spanish mission, one serving mission san juan, which are still used by area farmers to water their crops. religion has a very visible role in the community. in addition to the -- to what you don't see, you have on main plaza, the cathedral of san

fernando, which began in 1731 as the paris church, but also we have five missions in san antonio, which are now named a world heritage site. we have our first mission the alamo, which began as mission san antonio, which is right here in the city of san antonio, and then a few years later there was a second mission established, which was mission san jose, which has been restored rather elaborately and is the -- is the largest -- was the largest and most successful mission in texas. and three of the missions actually moved from north texas to san antonio, and they are scattered along the san antonio river south of -- south of downtown. the largest of them is mission concepcion, which is -- the church itself is the largest unrestored spanish church in the

united states. we also have two smaller ones, mission san francisco de espada and mission san juan capestrado which we call san juan to keep from confusing the californians. that gives us five missions which is the largest grouping of spanish missions in the united states. texas was desirable for its geography and its location, and as a lot of border lands are, it went -- the control went back and forth between various governmental entities. i would suspect that san antonio yans got whiplash in the early 19th century. there were six different governments in san antonio. first, up until the 1820s, san antonio was under the overall control of spain. then in 1821 there was a revolution in which mexico took control. then came the republic of texas, the revolution in 1836 which was

related to the alamo, and we had the republic of texas. then in 1845, texas was annexed by the united states. in 1861 we had the confederacy in charge, and then four years later, we were back to the united states, but probably the single factor that shapes san antonio's character and its appearance and its very being was its isolation on the texas frontier where inland where a couple hundred miles from the texas coast, and the only way to reach san antonio was by ox cart from the texas coast, and that took a couple of it days when it wasn't raining. and when there wasn't mud. it was a very difficult city to get to 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. people, reporters would love to come to san antonio and report on what it looked like, and so there's a great awareness of this. this didn't totally please people like in houston where the railroad came from, and after the railroad came, one newspaper over there reported that hoards of people went to san antonio for a day to peep around and then come back and tell everyone how queer the city looked, and it did. it did. and that was a big attraction then and that has still become an attraction now. san antonio is probably three hours from the mexican board from nueva laredo. the proximity to mexico has been very efficient to san antonio because of immigration. when the mexican revolution began in 1910, there was so much

violence that the mexican citizens, many of them began crossing the rio grande and coming up into texas. they were settled in refugee camps and tens of thousands of them came to san antonio. for many years they lived in the poorest centers of town, but then as the generations went on, they became leading citizens in the community. we have henry b. gonzalez was our first hispanic congressman in the 1950s, and that has really helped make san antonio the type of place it is today. i think it would be important for people to realize as they learn about san antonio simply to understand what a distinctive and diverse city san antonio is, how significant its roots are in history, and how much it has contributed to the history of

the country. live now to a confirmation hearing for deputy defense secretary nominee kathleen hicks. the senate armed services committee is hosting today's meeting. this is scheduled to get underway shortly. live coverage here on c-span3.