Zero Milestone_Old Spanish Trail

San Antonio, TX

This crossing over the San Antonio River was the main ford between the town of San Fernando de Bexar and the Alamo, and history clustered around it for centuries. At its footbridge on February 23, 1836, Alamo emissary Albert Martin parleyed with Santa Anna's aide Juan Almonte in the opening days of the siege; later the span drew travelers and writers, and bore a famously trilingual sign warning German, Mexican, and Anglo riders—each in their own tongue—not to gallop across. The present structure replaced an 1880 iron bridge, still linking the old city to the new.

San Antonio, TX

Built in 1903 for the William Joske family, this San Antonio residence is best remembered for William Baker Teagarden, an attorney, judge, and longtime representative of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Its two-story Queen Anne design features a brick-over-frame exterior, a pyramidal roof with gables and dormers, and wraparound porches on both levels. By the early 21st century it was among the last historic homes of a once-intact neighborhood.

San Antonio, TX

When the railroad reached San Antonio in 1877, new neighborhoods rose on the high ground near San Pedro Springs. Here, cotton broker Roy Hearne and his wife Madge — a granddaughter of Sam Houston — built a home in the 1910s, hiring architect Atlee B. Ayres and contractor Eugene Davis. Its eclectic blend of prairie, craftsman, mission, and neoclassical styles, from granite and green tile roof to original mosaic floors, reflects the confident taste of the railroad-era city.

San Antonio, TX

Laid down in 1914 in San Antonio's Monte Vista district, Belknap Place is the oldest surviving concrete street in Texas and a landmark of early road engineering. It used a patented two-layer "granitoid" process, developed in the wake of the nation's first concrete street in Bellefontaine, Ohio, that has let the pavement endure a century without major repair. Its stamped brick surface even gave horseshoes a non-slip grip — a telling detail from the moment when horse traffic was giving way to the automobile.