Travel and Places

10 Stunning Facts You Should Know About San Antonio

1. San Antonio is the oldest municipality in Texas. That means all residents automatically receive AARP benefits from the time of birth.

2. San Antonio is the seat of Bexar County. The town of Two Pines is the handlebars, the village of Spiney Toad is the sprocket, and the community of Red Sky is the front fork.

3. The city was built in the Spanish Colonial era, known for its liberal use of Flamenco-dancing stonemasons.

4. San Antonio is the nexus of the San Antonio-New Braunfels metro area, but everybody calls it “San Antonio” because no one, not even the people that named it, can pronounce New Braunfels without severely injuring their tongue and needing to take off 18 weeks of work and burn up all of their health benefits.

5. Saint Anthony of Padua named San Antonio in 1691. Padua is the spanish word for “paddle,” another thing he brought with him on his Spanish expeditions, a tool of torture used by Catholic nuns ever since.

6. There are five missions from the 1700s inside the walls of the city of San Antonio: Mission Nintendo, Mission Super Bowl, Mission Commission, Mission Holdmysneeze and Mission Cowboysrule.

7. One of the most popular attractions in San Antonio is the Alamo, known for the famous Battle of the Alamo in 1836. A lesser known battle took place there called the Battle of the Hottest Hot Sauce in Town, organized by the San Antonio Restaurant Commission in 1875.

8. Another popular tourist destination is the River Walk, a picturesque string of shops and restaurants along a leafy river stroll. In winter months, the river is frozen over and tourists are invited to give hockey-style body blocks to other skaters so they go flying into the tables and chairs of diners at the edge of the ice.

9. Another notable attraction is Six Flags over Texas, a huge flag factory that only makes six different flags: the Texas flag, San Antonio flag, Wrangler Jeans flag, Tony Lama Boots flag, Waylon Jennings family flag and the Whataburger flag.

10. Fort Sam Houston is the only American military installation in the city limits. The camp is unique in that every soldier is renamed “Sam Houston” to make it easier use their name when yelling at cadets that their bed looks like it was made during the Battle of the Alamo.

Joe Ditzel

Joe Ditzel is a keynote speaker, humor writer, and really bad golfer. You can reach him via email at [email protected] as well as Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn.