San Antonio, Texas

San Antonio is the second-largest city in the state of Texas and the seventh-largest in the United States. As of the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of over 1.3 million, and its eight-county metropolitan area has a population of over 2.2 million. The county seat of Bexar County, it covers over 400 square miles on the northern edge of the South Texas region and southeast of the Texas Hill Country.

The site was originally called Yanaguana by the Native Americans who lived here before European settlement. Europeans first explored the area in 1536 when a shipwrecked member of a Spanish expedition to Florida landed in and described the area. The site was named San Antonio in 1691 when Spanish explorers arrived in the area on the feast day of Saint Antonio. In 1716 a Spanish fort was approved for construction in what is now the city. In the following decades the settlement grew to be the largest one in what is now Texas. It served as the colonial capital of Spanish Tejas from 1724 to Mexican independence. Americans began to settle in the city in 1821 at the invitation of the new Mexican government.

During the Mexican War of Independence, Texian forces captured the city, expelling the Mexicans in December 1835. Santa Anna returned to the city later and lay siege to the Texian and American volunteer forces stationed in the Alamo Mission. The defenders were overcome and executed in March. The massacre at the Alamo was a major rallying point for Texian forces until the end of the war, and then became an important propaganda tool during the Mexican-American War in 1844. After annexation to the United States, San Antonio was a site of foreign immigration.

The first public demonstration of barbed wire was made in San Antonio in 1876; its adoption thereafter was a major factor in the successful settlement of the American West. The city grew substantially after the railroad reached it in 1877.

Notable persons from San Antonio include:
● Carol Burnett - actress-comedienne
● Olivia de Havilland- actress
● Josh Beckett- Major League baseball player
● Christopher Cross - singer/songwriter
● Ernest Tubb - singer/songwriter
● Sandra Cisneros- writer
● Lara Flynn Boyle - actress
● Henry Cisneros - former mayor and US HUD Secretary
● Flaco Jimenez - Tejano musician
● B.J. "Red" McCombs - co-founder of Clear Channel Communications

www.sanantonio.gov/