Spanish Governor's Palace

The Spanish Governor's Palace is the last standing piece of the Presidio San Antonio de Béxar, which Martín de Alarcón founded on May 5, 1718, to guard Mission Valero. The Marqués de San Miguel de Aguayo moved the presidio to this ground in 1722 and asked the king for 25,000 adobe bricks and 40 more laborers. The keystone over the front door carries the arms of Ferdinand VI and the date 1749. Despite its name, the building was the home and office of the presidio captains, who protected the five missions and the families that settled the town; it was never really a palace.

In 1804 the last captain, José Menchaca, sold the compound, then six rooms, to the merchant Ignacio Pérez, and his family lived here for half a century while Spain gave way to Mexico, the Republic and the state. From the mid-1860s it was leased out. Through the 1920s it held a pawn shop, a produce wholesaler, school classrooms, saloons, a tire shop and a clothing store.

The city bought it in 1928 and finished a restoration in 1930, at the height of the Spanish Colonial Revival. The rebuilt house came out larger than the original, with ten rooms, a courtyard and a fountain, and furnished with a romantic idea of colonial life. The city now treats that interpretation as part of the history: plaques set into the walls in 1930 give the early story, and newer panels give what research has found since. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1970.