A new YouTube video traces San Antonio history from the founding of the missions to the Spurs entering the NBA Finals this year.
Josie Norris/San Antonio Express-News
San Antonians have no excuse for forgetting key local events after a YouTube channel recently posted an animated video chronicling 308 years of the city’s history.
The 18-minute video — released last week by the account ChronoCity, which posts 3D time-lapses of different metros — span’s the Alamo City’s history from the construction of the first missions to the San Antonio Spurs’ return to the NBA Finals this year.
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The video documents the city’s historic touchstones from 1718 to 2026, as upbeat music plays with the occasional interruption of the pop of gunfire or celebratory cheers.
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The video begins with the construction of the Mission San Antonio de Valero in its original site when only 70 people were included in the city’s population count. Next appears Texas’ first civil town, Villa de Béxar, founded by 16 families in 1731.
The video zooms out when panning between the missions as they were erected, separated by expanses of green interrupted by the occasional river. As time moves on, more buildings dot the landscape, and increasingly large structures rise from the ground. By the time Mexicans took Béxar from Spain, roads connect the buildings and homes around the Alamo, and the population ticks up to 2,500. The Battle of the Alamo ignites the sparse town in a blaze.
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Development gains speed after Texas becomes part of the United States in 1845, giving way to Germans building mansions in current day King William in 1870 and San Fernando Cathedral three years later. The rest of the 19th century sees more iconic sites appear across the area: Fort Sam Houston, the railroad, the Battle of Flowers parade, Pearl Brewhouse (returned to existence in 2015 when it became Hotel Emma) and the Bexar County Courthouse.
Rows of white tents dot Riverside Park, where former President Theodore Roosevelt trained his volunteer Rough Riders in 1898.
The video returns to Fort Sam Houston in 1910 for the first military flight of Lt. Benjamin Foulois.
The Japanese Tea Garden springs to life in 1918, followed a decade later by the Milam Building — the country’s first air conditioned office tower — and the Smith-Young Tower and Majestic Theatre.
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The historic river through downtown was lined with stone paths and bridges in 1939, as the city’s population neared 300,000. Two years later, lit barges floated down the new River Walk for the first Fiesta River Parade.
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As Loop 410 ringed San Antonio in the 1950s and ’60s, suburban neighborhoods sprawled from the city center.
The Tower of the Americas shot into the sky in 1968, the same year that the Hilton Palacio Del Rio was constructed in a month and a half by bringing in 485 rooms built off-site using a crane.
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The Spurs’ 1973 arrival to the city is punctuated with spotlights projected into the air.
The video then pans to the West Side for the 1988 opening of the largest SeaWorld, followed by Fiesta Texas and the 65,000-seat Alamodome in 1992. The city’s population edges past 1 million, and fireworks burst into the sky for the Spurs’ first championship win in 1999.
The video returns to the missions in 2013 when eight miles of restored river connected the missions. Two years later, the missions became the first Texas landmark to be labeled a UNESCO World Heritage Site, recognized for their historical value.
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The visual history closes on a celebratory note, with its final events including the Spurs returning to the NBA Finals this year for the first time in more than a decade, when the city’s population surpassed 1.5 million.