Spanish Governor's Palace - The 1749 Keystone

Photo: Michael Barera, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)

A stop on San Antonio River Walk and the Alamo, a free self-guided tour.

Behind this whitewashed wall stands the only remaining example in Texas of an aristocratic 18th-century Spanish colonial town house. Look up at the keystone over the front door: it carries the coat of arms of King Ferdinand VI of Spain and the date 1749, the year the building was completed.

It began as the home and offices of the captain of the Spanish presidio, the military post that guarded the missions and the town. Later it housed Spanish governors, and from 1772 it served as the seat of government for Spanish Texas. The rooms inside, furnished in period style, are run by the City of San Antonio as a museum.

The square in front was the Plaza de Armas, or Military Plaza, where soldiers once drilled. In the 1800s it became famous for San Antonio's chili queens, women who sold bowls of chili con carne from open-air stands under lanterns at night. Today San Antonio City Hall sits in the middle of the plaza.

Getting here: Walk back east on Commerce Street to Military Plaza, the square around City Hall; the palace faces the plaza from its west side.

Did you know?: Visitors in the 1880s wrote about the chili queens' cooking fires and lantern-lit tables on this plaza, and the stands helped make chili famous far beyond Texas.

Photo op: Frame the carved wooden door and the 1749 keystone above it; step back to include the whitewashed wall.

More on Wikipedia: Spanish Governor's Palace · Chili con carne

Spanish Governor's Palace - The 1749 Keystone

Stops on this tour