Acequia de Arriba

The bootmaker named on the plaque ran theaters too. Sam Lucchese, born in Sicily in 1868, came to the United States in 1883 and opened the Lucchese Boot and Shoe Factory in San Antonio with his brothers; by 1919 it made thirty-five pairs of custom boots a day. In 1912 he bought the Teatro Zaragoza, the center of Spanish-language drama in the city, and by 1915 managed its company himself, traveling to Mexico for talent, before opening the Teatro Nacional. His daughter Josephine, trained in San Antonio, became known in Europe as the American Nightingale.

What the plaque says

Acequia de Arriba 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 Hildebrand 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 the garden plots, farmlands and each of the five missions. The acequias of San Antonio shaped future settlement patterns and street alignments. The Zambrano/Rosengren House, a Texas landmark in its own right, was built was built shortly after the completion of the acequia. In the 1900s, talented and world-renowned artists took up residency along the Acequia de Arriba. The River Road Country Day School was built in 1926. The celebrated painter, Georgia O'Keeffe, 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 Starcke all lived in this scenic neighborhood. (2012)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Alamo — 2.1 mi
  Mission San Antonio de Valero before it was a fort: a church its builders never finished, a thirteen-day siege in 1836, and the Army gable of 1850-52 that became its emblem.
• San Fernando Cathedral — 2.3 mi
  The Canary Islanders' parish church on Main Plaza, where Bowie married and Santa Anna raised a red flag, rebuilt in Gothic Revival around the walls of the 1750s church.
• Spanish Governor's Palace — 2.4 mi
  The last visible piece of the Presidio San Antonio de Béxar: a presidio captain's house with a 1749 keystone, a century as shops and saloons, and a romantic 1930 restoration.
• San Antonio River Walk — 2.4 mi
  A Depression-era park one level below downtown, built because San Antonio refused to pave its river after the 1921 flood, and designed by an architect the project later fired.

More markers nearby

• Portland Cement Plants — 0.4 mi
• Alamo Portland and Roman Cement Company — 0.4 mi
• Ludwig Mahncke — 0.7 mi
• Monte Vista Historic District — 0.9 mi