DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Acequia de Arriba, out in Bexar County. Now, before there were streets, before there were neighborhoods, before there was much of anything worth watering — there was a ditch. And not just any ditch.
The kind of ditch worth fighting a king over. Back in the late 1700s, the residents of the Villa de San Fernando had a problem. The population was growing, the land was thirsty, and the solution seemed simple enough: dig an acequia — an irrigation ditch — to carry water where it was needed.
So they did what you did in those days. They petitioned the King of Spain. Now, here's where it gets interesting.
The San Antonio de Valero missionaries had opinions about this. Strong ones. And for years — years — they opposed it.
You can imagine the back-and-forth, the petitions, the counter-petitions, the whole slow grind of colonial bureaucracy working its way across an ocean. But the townspeople held their ground. And in the end, the king upheld their viewpoint.
So in 1778, they finished it. The Acequia de Arriba. It began just west of the San Antonio River and swerved — and I love that word on the marker, swerved — south and west all the way to San Pedro Creek.
Water moved. Land woke up. And because of the acequia, the community flourished.
Now put that ditch in context. The Franciscan missionaries and early Spanish settlers didn't stop at one. They excavated a total of seven irrigation ditches along the San Antonio River and San Pedro Creek, carrying water to garden plots, to farmlands, to each of the five missions.
Seven ditches threading water through the landscape — and those acequias ended up shaping the future settlement patterns and street alignments of San Antonio. The city you drive through today still follows lines drawn by people hauling dirt in the eighteenth century. Shortly after the Acequia de Arriba was completed, the Zambrano/Rosengren House went up alongside it — a Texas landmark in its own right, the marker tells us.
And then time passed, as time does. But the acequia kept drawing people to it. In the 1900s, talented and world-renowned artists started taking up residency along the Acequia de Arriba.
The River Road Country Day School was built in 1926, and among the many who painted there was the celebrated Georgia O'Keeffe herself. That same year — 1926 — famed Texas boot maker Sam Lucchese built a house along this stretch, and he put a stage in it. Because his daughter Josephine was an internationally renowned opera singer, and a stage seemed like the right thing to have.
The neighborhood kept collecting remarkable people. Potter Harding Black. Watercolorist Caroline Shelton.
Writer Lois Burkhalter. Broadway producer Walter Starcke. All of them drawn to this scenic stretch carved by a ditch that started as a petition to a faraway king.
And here's the thing about a ditch — you might not think of it as the kind of thing that lasts. But south of Hildebrand Avenue, limestone ditch gates are still visible to this day. And over at the San Antonio Zoo, the fish ponds you might walk right past without a second thought?
Those are intact remnants of the Acequia de Arriba's past. Some ditches, it turns out, are built to endure.
What the marker says
In the late 1700s, residents of the Villa de San Fernando petitioned the King of Spain for permission to furrow an acequia (irrigation ditch) to water the land for the growing population. After years of opposition from the San Antonio de Valero missionaries, the king upheld the viewpoint of the townspeople. In 1778, they finished the Acequia de Arriba that began just west of the San Antonio River and swerved south and west to San Pedro Creek. Because of the acequia, the community flourished. Limestone ditch gates south of Hildebrand Avenue are still visible evidence of an agrarian era and the San Antonio Zoo's fish ponds are intact remnants of the acequia's past. The Franciscan missionaries and early Spanish settlers excavated a total of seven irrigation ditches along the San Antonio River and San Pedro Creek. Water was carried to the garden plots, farmlands and each of the five missions. The acequias of San Antonio shaped future settlement patterns and street alignments. The Zambrano/Rosengren House, a Texas landmark in its own right, was built was built shortly after the completion of the acequia. In the 1900s, talented and world-renowned artists took up residency along the Acequia de Arriba. The River Road Country Day School was built in 1926. The celebrated painter, Georgia O'Keeffe, was one of many who painted at this school. Famed Texas boot maker, Sam Lucchese built a house in 1926 with a stage on which daughter Josephine, an internationally renowned opera singer, performed. Potter Harding Black, watercolorist Caroline Shelton, writer Lois Burkhalter, and Broadway producer Walter Starcke all lived in this scenic neighborhood. (2012)