Historical Tours

Visit this elegant, three-story Victorian home built in 1876 for German immigrant Edward Steves, the founder of the Steves Lumber Company. The landscaped grounds include a carriage house, wash house, and former servants’ quarters converted to a visitors’ center.

Please note that the Yturri-Edmunds site will be closed until 2014, while the city makes improvements to Mission Road as part of the Mission Trails Project.  This portion of the project is one of the last needed to complete the nine mile trail linking the Spanish missions from the Alamo to Mission Espada.

The Yturri-Edmunds home is one of the few adobe-block houses remaining in San Antonio. Built between 1840 and 1860, this house last belonged to local school teacher Ernestine Edmunds. Miss Edmunds’ grandfather, Manuel Yturri Castillo, received the land as a grant from the Mexican government in 1824.

The Downtown North River Tour begins downtown at the Southwest School of Art, Artpace, and the Central Library. It encompasses the San Antonio Museum of Art, Brackenridge Park and finishes with the Witte Museum, the Botanical Gardens and ultimately ends with the source of the San Antonio River on the campus of the University of the Incarnate Word.

This neighborhood of stately houses shaded by enormous trees is located just south of downtown along the San Antonio River. Many Germans immigrants began to settle in this area by the 1870s and it became known as "Sauerkraut Bend" to the rest of San Antonio. In 1967 the King William District was designated the first Historic Neighborhood District in Texas. The Steves Homestead at 509 King William and Villa Finale at 401 King William are the only residences open to the public for tours.

Follow the Texas Star plaques set into the sidewalk downtown to see some of San Antonio’s most significant commercial and public buildings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The tour begins in Alamo Plaza and returns to the nearby Menger Hotel. Addresses are given for those who wish to drive instead of walk.