Saving San Antonio: The Precarious Preservation of a Heritage [Hardcover]

Lewis F. Fisher (Author), T. R. Fehrenbach (Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0896723720 | ISBN-13: 978-0896723726 | Publication Date: November 15, 1996 | Edition: First edition.

Few American cities enjoy the likes of San Antonio's visual links with its dramatic past. The Alamo and four other Spanish missions, plus a host of additional landmarks and folkways surviving over the course of nearly three centuries, still lend San Antonio an "odd and antiquated foreignness." Adding to the charm of the nation's ninth largest city is a bend in the San Antonio River, saved to become a winding linear park through the heart of downtown and a world model for sensitive urban development. San Antonio's heritage has not been preserved by accident. The wrecking balls and headlong development that accompanied progress in nineteenth-century San Antonio roused an indigenous historic preservation movement—the first west of the Mississippi River to become effective. Its thrust has increased since the mid-1920s with the pioneering work of the San Antonio Conservation Society. Lewis Fisher peels back the myths surrounding more than a century of preservation triumphs and failures to reveal a lively mosaic that portrays the saving of San Antonio's cultural and architectural soul. The process, entertaining in the telling, has significant lessons for the built environments and economies of cities everywhere. Lewis F. Fisher came to San Antonio in 1969 as a reporter for the San Antonio Express-News, covering among other issues, conservation and historic preservation. He later established a group of suburban San Antonio newspapers, which he published for twenty-one years. He is a graduate of Allegheny College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a former intelligence officer in the US Air Force. Fisher and his wife Mary, a fifth-generation San Antonian, have two sons and live in San Antonio.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Lewis F. Fisher came to San Antonio in 1969 as a reporter for the San Antonio Express-News, covering among other issues, conservation and historic preservation. He later established a group of suburban San Antonio newspapers, which he published for twenty-one years. He is a graduate of Allegheny College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a former intelligence officer in the US Air Force. Fisher and his wife Mary, a fifth-generation San Antonian, have two sons and live in San Antonio.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 552 pages
• Publisher: Texas Tech University Press; First edition. edition (November 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0896723720
• ISBN-13: 978-0896723726
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,520,193 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars San Antonio Historic Conservation, April 29, 2002

By 

Mark Twain "A Unitarian" (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Saving San Antonio: The Precarious Preservation of a Heritage (Hardcover)

This is a fascinating and entertaining account of the successes and failures of local conservation and historic preservation groups over a period of almost a century. The photographs and names in the footnotes brought back many memories, but showed me how little attention I had paid to what was happening in the historic town I grew up in. Highly recommended to any one who has ever been to San Antonio, also those who are facing conservation battles in their own locale.