SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS—Waterway features dating to the Spanish colonial period have been unearthed in Brackenridge Park. The dam, built in 1719, is the oldest to be unearthed in the city. Its irrigation waterways served the Mission San Antonio de Valero, which was moved further north after a hurricane in 1724. This is “one of the most concentrated groupings of acequia features [to be found] in the past 10 or 15 years,” said Kay Hindes, city archaeaologist.
San Antonio’s Spanish Waterways
News May 3, 2013
Recommended Articles
Off the Grid January/February 2026
Prophetstown, Indiana
Letter from France January/February 2026
Neolithic Cultural Revolution
How farmers came together to build Europe’s most grandiose funerary monuments some 7,000 years ago
Features January/February 2026
The Cost of Doing Business
Piecing together the Roman empire’s longest known inscription—a peculiarly precise inventory of prices
Features January/February 2026
The Birds of Amarna
An Egyptian princess seeks sanctuary in her private palace
-
Features March/April 2013
Pirates of the Original Panama Canal
Searching for the remains of Captain Henry Morgan's raid on Panama City
(Courtesy Captain Morgan Rum Co.) -
Features March/April 2013
A Soldier's Story
The battle that changed European history, told through the lens of a young man’s remains
(Courtesy Dominique Bosquet) -
Letter From Cambodia March/April 2013
The Battle Over Preah Vihear
A territorial dispute involving a 1,100-year-old Khmer temple on the Thai-Cambodian border turns violent
(Masuru Goto) -
Artifacts March/April 2013
Pottery Cooking Balls
Scientific analyses and experimental ARCHAEOLOGY determine that mysterious, 1,000-year-old balls of clay found at Yucatán site were used in cooking
(Courtesy Bolonchen Regional Archaeological Project)