The Spanish Governor's Palace

You're standing on Plaza de Armas, just west of Main Plaza, with City Hall close by and Market Square a short walk beyond. In front of you is a low, one-story building of thick stuccoed walls. Find the front door, and look at the keystone above it. Carved there is the coat of arms of the Spanish king Ferdinand VI, and a date: 1749.

That date is the end of a long wait. The building was planned as early as 1722. Back then, this whole patch of downtown was meant to be a fort, the Presidio San Antonio de Béxar. Its job was to guard the missions strung along the river, including the one you started this tour at, the Alamo, and to protect the young Spanish colony around them. The name of the square you're on is a leftover. Plaza de Armas means parade ground, where soldiers drilled.

You're standing on Plaza de Armas, the old parade ground, just west of San Fernando Cathedral. In front of you is a long, low building of stucco and stone, one story tall, which hardly seems to earn the word palace. Find the front door, and look at the stone just above it. That's the keystone. Carved into it are the coat of arms of the Spanish king Ferdinand VI and the date 1749.

That keystone is a clue to what this building really was. In the early 1700s, King Philip V of Spain was worried about the French pushing into Texas. So he ordered Martín de Alarcón, the governor of Coahuila and Texas, to plant a mission and a military post where the San Antonio River and San Pedro Creek begin. The mission became San Antonio de Valero, the place you know as the Alamo.