DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker says about La Quinta de las Piedras — the Miguel Menchaca House — out in Bexar County. Now, there are houses, and then there are houses built like they expect trouble. This one was built in the 1850s, and from the moment you lay eyes on those thick rock walls, you understand that Miguel Menchaca was not a man who left things to chance.
The place is a stone villa — La Quinta de las Piedras — and it did not go up looking the way it does by accident. Somewhere inside those walls, if you know where to look, you'll find gun-slits. Not windows exactly.
Slits. Cut for observation. Cut for defense.
The kind of architectural detail that tells you the builder had a very clear-eyed view of what the world outside might bring to his door. And the walls aren't the half of it. Beneath the house itself, there is a spring.
A natural spring, right under the foundation, supplying water in times of siege. Siege. That word is right there on the marker, and it earns its place.
Whoever was sheltering inside La Quinta de las Piedras could hold out — water, stone walls, and those narrow slits to keep watch on whatever was coming. Now, who was Miguel Menchaca? He was a descendant of the prominent Canary Islanders who came to Texas in 1731.
That lineage runs deep in this country — families who put down roots here before most of the map had names on it. Menchaca carried that heritage forward, and he planted it in stone in the 1850s, right here in Bexar County. Thick walls.
Gun-slits. A spring in the basement. Some families build a home.
Miguel Menchaca built a position.
What the marker says
Home of Miguel Menchaca, descendant of prominent Canary Islanders who came to texas 1731. Stone villa built in 1850's. In its thick rock walls are "gun-slits" for observation, defense. Spring under house supplied water in times of siege. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1965.