Downtown Church Tour

Last weekend, after several weeks of yucky, cold, rainy weather, the sun finally broke through the clouds and blessed us with a beautiful sunshiny day!  Lucky for us, we already had plans to be outside taking in the sights on a Downtown Churches tour sponsored by the City of San Antonio Office of Historic Preservation.  If you'd like to see a map of our route, click here.

We started at the Southwest School of Art, former home of the Ursuline Academy, a Catholic school for girls founded in the mid-1800s.

Even though the sun was shining, it was still a little chilly in the shade.

Next we walked to Central Christian Church, constructed in 1903.

Requisite picture in front of the church - wouldn't want to break tradition.

Our next stop was Madison Square Presbyterian.

The tour wasn't all churches.  We also passed a few other San Antonio landmarks like the El Tropicano hotel.

The massive First Baptist Church was located just across the river from the El Tropicano.

I loved the courtyard gates

and the crazy roofline.

We hit the half-way point near the First Church of Christ - Scientist,

before heading across the street to Grace Lutheran Church.  The congregation's historian gave us a quick run-down of the church's history then launched into several fascinating stories about his life growing up in the church (he was born in 1929, the same year the church was finished).

Our friend Amy joined us for the tour.  She's a traffic engineer and found this old signal box along our route.  So much detail in even the most mundane pieces of equipment.

A few blocks away, we found ourselves at First Presbyterian Church.

First Presbyterian was hosting a national conference, so we weren't able to go inside, we be did get to tour the inside of our next stop, St. Mark's Episcopal Church.  The sanitary has recently undergone a major restoration project, and the architects responsible for the restoration were on-hand to tell us all about their work.

Our second-to-last church was Travis Park United Methodist.  Our tour guides had several historic pictures of this tower, showing the growth of the spire over the years.

Travis Park United Methodist was located on the very edge of the forest skyscrapers that make up the heart of downtown,

and St. Mary's Catholic Church, surprisingly only the second Catholic church on this tour, was wedged neatly in between those same skyscrapers.

All-in-all the tour was a fantastic way to spend a Saturday morning.  We will definitely be on the look out for the next one.