San Fernando Cathedral: The Oldest Sanctuary in Texas

On the west side of San Antonio's Main Plaza stands a cathedral that has been at the center of Texas history for nearly three hundred years. San Fernando Cathedral is the oldest standing church building in Texas and one of the oldest cathedral sanctuaries in the United States, and the events it has witnessed would fill several history books.

The story begins in seventeen thirty-one, when fifteen families arrived from the Canary Islands at the invitation of King Philip the Fifth of Spain, sent to settle the new villa of San Fernando de Béxar. One of their first acts was to lay the cornerstone of a parish church on the plaza. Construction stretched from seventeen thirty-eight into the seventeen fifties. The twin-towered Gothic Revival facade visible today came with a major nineteenth-century expansion.

Santa Anna used the cathedral's bell tower as an observation post during his siege of the Alamo in February and March of eighteen thirty-six. From that tower, a red flag was flown signaling no quarter, no mercy. James Bowie, who would die at the Alamo, had been married in this church. William Barret Travis and Davy Crockett are among the defenders commemorated here.

The cathedral has remained a working parish throughout every era of San Antonio's history, from Spanish colonial administration to Mexican rule, from the Republic of Texas through American statehood and beyond. Sunday Mass has been celebrated here without interruption for nearly three centuries.

Today the cathedral broadcasts a nightly light-and-sound show called The Saga, projected on its stone facade, telling the full sweep of San Antonio's history from indigenous peoples through the present. The cathedral stands precisely at the geographic and spiritual heart of the city, as it has since the day those fifteen Canary Island families chose this plaza.