SAN ANTONIO: THE PRIDE OF TEXAS
Story and photography
by Margaret & Eric Anderson
Is that all there is to San Antonio? Heart-stopping history, ethnic variety, enthusiastic culture and architectural restorations? Hardly. Says a close friend and San Anton' resident, Evelyn Stevenson, "We're a big city with a small town feel. We have everything you'd expect in a large metropolitan area: shopping, public transportation, easy highway access, cultural and recreational attractions. But we also have everything you'd want in a small town -- our traffic is fairly orderly and our streets are calm. We don't have the bustle, movement and pressures of a large city, and we don't have many tall concrete buildings. We do have our lush greenery.
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"We're the 9th largest city in the United States, yet visitors often stop me and ask, 'Where's downtown?' We tell 'em, 'This is it!'" San Antonio's vibrant downtown is its trump card. That it has flourished even as many major cities have seen their centers turn into ghost towns is due to several factors: the sanctity of the Alamo which has kept the area tastefully developed, the vigor of one of the best conservation societies in America (which has interceded many times in the past to preserve the past for its future citizens), the genuine friendliness of Texans and the comfort of night life when the day has cooled down, and the success of the Paseo del Rio, the River Walk, which has turned the possible disaster of a sluggish, shallow river into a Disney-like triumph whether you sail the river or walk its banks.
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Stevenson loves to point out that San Antonio is a walking city. Most of the interesting places and the hotels are within ten blocks of each other around the Alamo, an important consideration for families and older visitors. Moreover, parking isn't much of a problem. Most of the hotels are downtown and tourists find their car often stays parked until it's time to leave. Some of the hotels offer complimentary limo service to local attractions. San Antonio has more than 25,000 hotel rooms with choices ranging from the glittering modern hotels along the River Walk to the city's famous historic hotels.
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The San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau's website lets you can choose a hotel at sanantoniovisit.com and find its location on a city map. If you select a hotel for its history you hardly need a map; they are either right by the Alamo or within walking distance of it. Favorites include the 37-roomed Fairmount which opened in 1906 and was moved six blocks 80 years later, a piece of local history in itself (800-642-3363 wyndham.com); the 204-roomed Crockett Hotel, built in 1909 and now surely the most historic Holiday Inn in America (800-292-1050 crocketthotel.com ); the elegant high rise 177-roomed Emily Morgan that started life in the 1920s as a medical center and was converted to a hotel in 1985 (800-824-6674 emilymorganhotel.com ); but all pale for their place in history compared to the 350-roomed Great Old Dame, the Menger (800-345-9285 historicmenger.com which opened in 1859 just 23 years after the fall of the Alamo.
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When you walk into the Menger you walk into history. Teddy Roosevelt recruited his Roughriders in the Menger Bar. Naturally, Teddy was welcomed in Texas. Why wouldn't he be? He was -- like the Lone Star State -- larger than life.
The Andersons lived in Texas for four years and two of their children were born there.
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