[Illustration: Moses Austin, born in Connecticut, lost in 1819 the fortunes he had made in the South and West and two days before Christmas of the following year arrived in San Antonio seeking permission from the Spanish authorities to bring 300 families from the states to found a colony. This bronze statue of Moses Austin, modeled by Waldine Tauch, stands on the City Hall grounds facing the restored Spanish Governors’ Palace, from whence came permission to establish his colony.] [Illustration: Looking across Main Plaza to the San Fernando Cathedral. It is here that the original Canary Islanders settled in 1731, naming the spot “Plaza de las Islas”. San Fernando Cathedral was completed in 1873 after a fire destroyed most of the original 1749 building. Santa Anna used the church as an observation point during the siege of the Alamo in 1836.] [Illustration: This Georgia Marble Cenotaph in memory of the heroes of the Alamo stands opposite the Alamo fortress area. Its sides are inscribed with the names of all who fell at the Alamo. Pompeo Coppini was the sculptor. At the left is the Spanish Colonial Post Office, at the right, the Medical Arts Building.] [Illustration: This sixteen room mansion built in 1859 for James Vance of Stebaune, Ireland, stands as a splendid example of the Greek Revival influence in architecture felt all through the South before the Civil War. Robert E. Lee was often a guest here. The lumber and iron railings were brought in from New Orleans and much of the materials used in its construction were imported. It is said that the water hydrants were of solid silver.] [Illustration: The San Antonio River is but a narrow meandering stream, with headwaters just outside the northern city limits. In the twists and turns it makes, crossing six miles of street, it passes beneath 42 bridges. The Indians of the locality used a word that characteristically describes it as a “drunken-old-man-going-home-at-night”. The beautiful San Antonio River is about twenty feet below street level and the part that winds along twenty-one blocks of the downtown business section has been beautified and transformed into a Venetian-like canal. Stairways, each of a different design, lead down from the bridges to the river walkways lined with trees and shrubs, many of them semi-tropical. Here one can stop and relax away from the noise of traffic on the upper street level.] [Illustration: In the early days, Old St. Mary’s College, established in 1852, maintained a boat landing here and many of the boys who lived along the river came to school in their boats.] [Illustration: On St. Mary’s Street, at a picturesque bend in the river, has been preserved the home of John Twohig, erected in the early 1840’s. Because he gave barrels of bread to the poor on each Saturday, Twohig was given the name of “the breadline banker”.]