Concepción Park

Land near the San Antonio River at Concepción has been a gathering place for people for 11,500 years, beginning with native peoples and later Coahuiltecan hunting and gathering bands who used the spring-fed river, its fish, and the surrounding fruits, nuts, seeds, and grasses. By 1731, the Spanish had established five missions, a presidio, and a civilian settlement that depended on the river, including the missions now known as Concepción, San Juan, and Espada, moved here from East Texas, while Mission San Antonio de Valero had been founded in 1718 and Mission San José in 1720. As population grew, farms, ranches, streets, and houses reshaped the rural landscape, and the river was altered for flood control after major floods, especially following 1921 and again after 1946, though these changes removed habitat and vegetation. In the late 1990s, the San Antonio River Improvements Project began restoring the river ecosystem and recreational use, and its Mission Reach section was completed in 2013. The surrounding Concepción area changed from rural retreatland in the late 1800s into a neighborhood shaped by the San Antonio International Fair and Exposition, rail and streetcar lines, church institutions, industry, and later recreational sites. Water for San Antonio and the missions first came from the river and acequias, but after drought in the early 1890s and the closing of the Concepción acequia in 1869, deep artesian wells and the Mission Pump Station, opened in 1922, became important parts of the city's water supply.

San Antonio, Texas · United States