Bexar County is located in South Central Texas. Approximately 1/8 of the county is high, hilly terrain and the source of numerous springs. The San Antonio River, the county's main river, and San Pedro Creek originate in these springs. Several smaller streams flow into the San Antonio: the Medina River and the Calvares, Helotes, Leon, Medio, and Salado Creeks. The Cibolo Creek forms the boundary between Bexar and Comal Counties to the north and Guadalupe County to the east.
The county seat of Bexar County, and it's largest city, is San Antonio. Other cities and towns include Alamo Heights, Balcones Heights, Castle Hills, Converse, Lytle, Olmos Park, Terrell Hills, Timberwood Park, Universal City, and Windcrest.
Bexar County takes up an area of 1,248 square miles. In the far northwestern corner of the county are the Glenrose Hills, where the highest elevations (about 1,200 feet) are found.
The climate of Bexar County is subtropical with mild winters and hot summers. The average winter temperatures are 39°F-62°F to 73°F-96°F in the summer. With the growing season averaging 265 days a year, crops include corn, hay, oats, sorghum, wheat, and fruits and vegetables.
The first Europeans to explore the Bexar County area were with an expedition in 1691 led by Domingo Teran de los Rios and Fray Damian Massanet. They are believed to have reached the San Antonio River, where the San Juan Capistrano Mission was later founded. Massanet named the place San Antonio de Padua to commemorate the memorial day of St. Anthony, 13 June. The next group of Spanish explorers, led by fathers Antonio de San Buenaventura y Olivares and Isidro Felix de Espinos and a military officer, Pedro de Aguirre didn't reach the region until 1709. In 1714, Louis Juchereau de St. Denis crossed the San Antonio area. Espinosa visited the site again in 1716 with the expedition led by Domingo Ramon. In May 1718, Martin de Alarcon led the expedition that founded San Antonio de Valero Mission and San Antonio de Bexar Presidio, named for Viceroy Balthasar Manuel de Zuniga y Guzman Sotomayor y Sarmiento, second son of the duke of Bexar. By the end of 1718, many Indians of the Jamrame, Pamaya, and Payaya tribes had joined the mission. In 1724, the San Antonio de Valero mission , which had been originally located at the site of present-day Chapel of Miracles south of San Pedro Springs, was moved to Alamo Plaza. In 1731, three additional missions, Nuestra Senora de la Purisima Concepcion de Acuna, San Francisco de la Espada, and San Juan Capistrano, were founded along the San Antonio River.
During the 1720s, the Spanish population of the area of Bexar County was approximately 200, including 53 soldiers and their families and four civilians with their families. On 9 March 1731, fifty-five Canary-Islanders arrived, and the villa of San Fernando de Bexar became the first city in the Spanish province of Texas. By the middle 1730s, the total population was around 900, including 300 Spanish and 600 Indian converts. An epidemic in 1738-1739 devastated the missions, killing about 3/4 of the Indian population. By 1740, the missions' populations began to recover.
The missions developed as self-supporting communities. Each was surrounded by farmland and crops included beans, cotton, flax, grain, sugarcane, and vegetables. Each mission also maintained large herds of cattle, goats, and sheep.
The missions were sometimes subject to attacks by Apache and Comanche Indians. About a quarter of the Spanish who died between 1718 - 1731 were as a result of Indian attacks. A truce was signed with the Apaches August 1749, but attacks continued.
After the missions were secularized in 1793-1794, they slowly became civilian communities. The lands were distributed to the few remaining Indians and the increasing number of Spanish settlers, with the better land remaining with the town elite. The elite was made up of the descendants of the original Canary Island settlers.
San Antonio de Bexar continued to be an agricultural community. The largest number of cultivators worked small family plots, though many were worked by tenant farmers or day laboreres. The largest ranchers exported horses to Louisiana.
During the late colonial period, Bexar continued to serve as the capital of the province of Texas as well as the main shipping point for supplies headed for Nacogdoches. Between 1811 - 1813, the city was also the center of revolutionary activity against Spanish rule. In teh spring of 1813, Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara led an army of Mexican revolutionaries and sympathetic Americans from Louisiana, seized San Antonio, and proclaimed Texas an independent state. But by the summer, order was restored. This was followed by a period of confiscation, detentions, and executions.
As a result of the rebellion, the population of Bexar fell and did not begin to grow again until the end of the decade. By 1820, Bexar had about 2,000 inhabitants. The first Anglo-American colonists came to Texas in 1821, and soon after, San Antonio became the western outpost of settlement. During the late 1820s and early 1830s, Americans continued to settle in San Antonio. However, the city remained predominatly Mexican at the beginning of the Texas Revolution.
On 10 December 1835, after fierce fighting, Texas forces occupied the city of San Antonio. It was retaken by government forces led by Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna during the battle of the Alamo on 6 March 1836. Santa Anna's army was later defeated in the battle of San Jacinto, and the city was reoccupied by Texan forces. But the area continued to be claimed by both sides and was fought over for some time.
Because of frequent invasions, San Antonio and the surrounding area was hugely depopulated. Many settlers fled and did not return in large numbers until after Texas joined the Union. As late as 1844, San Antonio had only 1,000 residents. Nine-tenths were of Mexican descent.
The first Protestant churches in the future Bexar County area were organized in 1844 by two circuit riders, Methodist John Wesley DeVilbiss and Presbyterian John McCullough. In 1847, the Presbyterians built a small adobe church. The Methodists constructed their building in 1852. Trinity Mission of the Episcopal Church was founded in 1850, and Evangelical Lutheran Church was organized in 1857, and the Baptists organized their first church in 1861.
On 20 December 1860, Bexar County was officially established, with San Antonio as the county seat. Since that time, 128 counties have been carved from the original county, leaving the aforementioned 1,248 square miles.
The main source of revenue for the county was trade carried on between San Antonio and Mexico and New Orleans. A number of German and Anglo immigrants opened mercantile stores in the city, but there was little in the way of industry. In 1860, Bexar County had only 28 manufacturing establishments with 135 employees.
Bexar County was a center for antislavery sentiment, however, residents voted for secession (54% for, 46% against). On 16 February 1861, General David E. Twiggs, commander of the federal Department of Texas, surrendered all United States forces, arms, and equipment to a committee of local secessionists backed by a large force of Texas Rangers under Major Benjamin McCulloch.
After the Civil War, San Antonio was occupied by Union soldiers. The war and its aftermath also had a serious effect on the county's economy. Land prices fell significantly, and most of the county's businesses suffered. Many of the county's farms also fell idle. With little tax money coming in, San Antonio and county officials were unable to fund many services. Public sanitation suffered, and as a result, the county had a serious cholera outbreak in 1866.
San Antonio continued to be a commercial and military center, but the rest of the county remained scantily settled and undeveloped. Most of the population continued to be concentrated in the San Antonio River valley. Economic recovery did not begin until the late 1860s and early 1870s with the start of the great cattle drives. By 1870, the number of beef cattle in the county reached 55,325, nearly double the figure for 1860.
The economic recovery found its most important stimulus with the arrival of the first railroad. The Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway, reached San Antonio in February 1877. Its completion to the coast made the shipment of local products far easier and helped to fuel a rapid growth in population. The number of inhabitants in the county nearly doubled over the next decade. Many of the new residents were recent immigrants from Europe and Mexico. Of the total population in 1880, 7,912 were foreign-born, with the largest numbers coming from Mexico and Germany. After the Civil War, Bexar County's black population also grew dramatically as many freed slaves settled in and around San Antonio. By 1880, the number of African-American inhabitants had reached nearly three times what it had been in 1860.
The building of the railroads stimulated the establishment of many new communities, particularly along their route, including Macdona, Von Ormy, Cassin, Atascosa, Thelma, Beckman, Luxello, Converse, and Kirby.
The 1880s also saw many new industries. By 1887, San Antonio had three bookbinderies, four breweries, three carriage factories, four ice factories, three tanneries, one wool-scouring plant, and an iron foundry. After the turn of the century, the manufacturing sector continued to grow.
The agricultural economy grew rapidly, as well. Soon after World War I, a colony of Belgian immigrants began truck farming on a large scale just south and west of the city. The principal crops during the early years of this century included cane, corn, hegari, milo, oats, vegetables, and fruits. Oil was first discovered in Bexar County in 1889, and has since represented a significant part of the area's economy.
Bexar County and San Antonio began to attract increasing numbers of tourists. A spa and hotel opened in the 1890s at Hot Sulphur Wells, just south of the city, drawing guests from as far away as the Midwest and the East Coast.
San Antonio also developed as an important military center. The San Antonio Arsenal was opened in 1858, and in 1878 the city deeded ninety acres to the federal government for what eventually became Fort Sam Houston. During World War I, Kelly and Brooks fields (which later became Kelly Air Force Base and Brooks Air Force Base) were established to train pilots. At the end of the war, a part of Kelly Field became Duncan Field (later reintergrated with Kelly), and in 1931, Randolph Field was established as a primary flight training base.
The earliest mention of a school in the county occurred in 1789, when José de la Mata asked the town council to grant official standing to his private school. By 1828, there was also a school for Anglo-American children in San Antonio called McClure's School. By the early 1850s two private schools were in operation, one for boys and one for girls, run by the Brothers of Mary and the Ursuline Sisters. In the late 1850s and 1860s several additional schools were opened, including the German-English School, St. Mary's Hall, and a Freedmen's Bureau school for the children of newly liberated slaves. In 1879, the first public high school was founded.
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