1.04 - Building San Antonio

During the fifty year period beginning in 1718 and ending around 1768, Spanish friars and Native American converts moved nearly 1 million metric tons of limestone around the San Antonio River valley and erected the UNESCO World Heritage San Antonio Missions, using only crude hand tools and native ingenuity.

Recommended resource: National Park Service Missions Map

San Antonio Missions UNESCO World Heritage Designation Application

Luis Antonio Menchaca's Map del Presidio de San Antonio de Béxar, 1764

Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University