Acequia de Arriba
Marker No: 17368
Aluminum 27 x 42 Subject Marker
Geographic: 29.455561, -98.478836
Location: west of Allison Street in Brackenridge Park, north of the Upper Labor Irrigation Ditch
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Marker Text: In the late 1700s, residents of the Villa de San Fernando petitioned the King of Spain for permission to furrow an acequia (irrigation ditch) to water the land for the growing population. After years of opposition from the San Antonio de Valero missionaries, the king upheld the viewpoint of the townspeople. in 1778, they finished the Acequia de Arriba that began just west of the San Antonio River and swerved south and west to San Pedro Creek. Because of the acequia, the community flourished. Limestone ditch gates south of Hilderbrand Avenue are still visible evidence of an Agrarian era and the San Antonio Zoo's fish ponds are intact remnants of the acequia's past. The Franciscan missionaries and early Spanish settlers excavated a total of seven irrigation ditches along the San Antonio River and San Pedro Creek. Water was carried to garden plots. farmlands and each of the five missions. The acequias of San Antonio shaped future settlement patterns and street assignments.
The Zambrano/Rosenberg house, a Texas landmark in its own right, was built shortly after the completion of the acequia. in the 1900s, talented and world-renowned artists and writers took up residency alongside the acequia de Arriba. The River road Country Day School was built in 1926. The celebrated painter, Georgia OKeefe, was one of many who painted at this school, famed Texas boot maker Sam Lucchese built a house in 1926 with a stage on which daughter Josephine, an internationally renowned opera singer, performed. Potter Harding Black, watercolorist Caroline Shelton, writer Lois Burkhalter, and Broadway producer Walter Stackeall lived in this scenic neighborhood. (2012) |
