Beginning in the 1680s, several Spanish expeditions entered the still uncharted interior of Texas from Mexico to counter French activity in East Texas and along the Gulf Coast. On June 13, 1691, an expedition led by Governor Domingo Terán arrived at a Payaya Indian ranchería on a spring-fed river called Yanaguana by the Indians, and the Spanish named the river San Antonio because it was the feast day of St. Anthony of Padua. Eighteen years later, on April 13, 1709, an expedition with Capitán Pedro de Aguirre and Fray Antonio Olivares stopped at a spring west of the river and named it San Pedro Springs. In late April 1718, after the viceroy of New Spain, the Marqués de Valero, authorized Governor Martín de Alarcón to establish a way station on the San Antonio River between Mission San Juan Bautista on the Rio Grande and Spanish missions in East Texas, the Alarcón expedition arrived along the creek flowing from San Pedro Springs and selected a site for Mission San Antonio de Valero, which was turned over to Fray Antonio Olivares on May 1. Four days later Alarcón founded the Presidio San Antonio de Béxar near the springs. These events established the isolated settlement that survived, grew, and prospered into the City of San Antonio and Bexar County.
