1719 Acequia Madre and Diversion Dam - San Antonio, TX - Signs of History on Waymarking.com

Acequia Madre is roughly translated as: the mother irrigation ditch. It referred to an ingenious method the Spanish priests had of transferring water from the San Antonio River to the distant fields used for crop cultivation. Each of the five Spanish missions built along the San Antonio River used this gravity-fed irrigation ditch method to water their farm lands. This is one reason why San Antonio has survived the three centuries since the first missionary found the San Antonio Springs and decided this area would support their missionary purposes.

This sign of history is found behind the Witte Museum and within Brackenridge Park where the San Antonio River flows past them both.The address of the Witte Museum is 3801 Broadway, San Antonio, TX 78209. Park in the north end parking lot, just past the Mays Family Center building of the Witte Museum, about 200 feet before you reach the junction with Thorman Place. Walk toward the rive at the back end of the parking lot (away from Broadway). Follow the sidewalk on the NW side of the parking lot and it will take you to a small stone foot bridge over the San Antonio River. Continue to the left along the sidewalk and you will see a path going east off the main sidewalk to the river. It is at this junction of the sidewalk that this sign of history is found.

The informational panel titled "1719 Acequia Madre and Diversion Dam" is a freestanding horizonal informational board in a metal frame and stand. The panel shows the title across the top, a Witte Museum logo, and three illustrations along the bottom of the panel. The two columns of test is in the upper center and upper right portion of the panel. The three illustrations are titled "Map of the Presidio of San Antonio of Texas and the Mission of the Providence of Texas, 1764", "Church of the Alamo, 1839 - 1840", and the "Witte Museum campus with overlay of 1719 Acequia Madre Diversion Dam." The informational text is as follows:

"1719 Acequia Madre and Division Dam

The large limestone blocks in front of you are part of an interpretive structure that replicate the original Diversion Dam that once stood here. At this bend in the San Antonio River, the Spanish and American Indians of the Province of Texas built the Diversion Dam to channel the river water to the massive 1719 Acequia Madre, an irrigation canal and major source of water for San Antonio, The dam crossed the river at what is now the Witte Museum and funneled water into this 1719 Acequia Madre. The 1719 Acequia Madre flowed south along what is now Broadway, more than two miles through the farms of South Texas, on its journey to what became the Mission San Antonio de Valero (the Alamo) and then back into the San Antonio River."

If you walk to the front of the Witte Museum, you can see in the large stone patio in the front of the buildings that there is a wide pathway of dark colored stone that visually stands out as different from the rest of the patio stones. There are metal signs in the patio floor that state the dark color stones show where the original 1719 Acequia Madre canal flowed centuries before the brick, steel and concrete buildings of the Witte Museum complex was built on top of the old irrigation ditch's waterway.

Group that erected the marker: The Witte Museum URL of a web site with more information about the history mentioned on the sign: [Web Link] Address of where the marker is located. Approximate if necessary: 3801 Broadway San Antonio, TX USA 78209

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Date Logged Log   03/12/2021 WayBetterFinder visited it