San Fernando Cathedral and Main Plaza

You're standing on Main Plaza, the old heart of San Antonio, facing San Fernando Cathedral. Look at the front: twin bell towers, pointed Gothic doorways. Now look past them, toward the back of the building, where the old stone sanctuary and its dome rise behind the newer front. The city treats that dome as its center, cultural and geographic. Keep your eyes there, because that back end is the oldest piece of this whole story.

In 1731, the Spanish Crown sent 55 settlers from the Canary Islands, Spanish islands off the coast of Africa, to live beside the fort here. They needed a church. The cornerstone went down on May 11, 1738, and the work fell to the settlers, the soldiers and their families. Nobody among them really knew how to build in stone. By most accounts it went badly.

You're on Main Plaza, facing San Fernando Cathedral, the mother church of San Antonio's Catholic community and the seat of its archbishop. Look at the front: the pale stone, the pointed Gothic doorways, the twin bell towers. Hold on to those towers. They're part of the answer to a question this stop has to ask: which tower did the scariest moment in this church's history happen on?

In 1731 the Spanish Crown sent 55 people from the Canary Islands to live beside the fort here. Soldiers, their families and the new settlers started building a church in 1738. They weren't masons, and it showed. In 1748 the viceroy put up 12,000 pesos, stonemasons came up from Mexico, they cleared away the amateur work, and the church was finally dedicated in 1755.