Lecture: San Antonio c. 1848

When Army Captain Seth Eastman started down the Mississippi, Texas had been a state for only two years. His sketchbook in hand, Eastman made meticulous drawings of his journey from Fort Snelling, Minnesota, to New Orleans, and then to San Antonio and the Hill Country.

Cultural Historian Claudia Guerra, from the City of San Antonio’s Office of Historic Preservation discusses the importance of primary sources like Eastman’s sketches, and their role in preserving historic structures and giving them new life. Guerra describes the frontier town of adobe buildings and mesquite trees on the San Antonio River that Eastman encountered in 1848, while providing a national and international context of the era.