San Fernando Cathedral

The most prominent building in San Antonio, the San Fernando Cathedral, sits in the heart of downtown San Antonio.  The mother church of the Archdiocese of San Antonio, having been built between 1738 and 1750 by the Canary Islanders who were brought by the Spanish crown to settle the area, is one of the oldest cathedrals in the United States and the oldest standing church building in Texas.  

In 1831 Jim Bowie was married in San Fernando.  In 1836 at the beginning of the siege of the Alamo, Santa Anna ordered the blood red flag of no quarter to be raised from the cathedral tower, a signal to the men inside the Alamo that they would not be spared.  In 1936, one hundred years later, during a renovation charred bones and other items were found in a box beneath the sanctuary railing that was believed to contain the remains of the men who died at the Alamo.  After the battle Santa Anna had the bodies burned in giant pyres outside the fallen fort and the ashes were reported to have been later collected and buried at the church. Today a small coffin holding those ashes is enshrined in the cathedral.  In 1987, Pope John Paul II visited San Fernando, the only visit of a pope in Texas.  In 2003, a $15 million renovation project was undertaken.