High school renovation unearths San Antonio’s hidden water grid

Archaeologists find massive colonial canal system beneath Fox Tech campus…
Centuries-old “San Pedro” technology once powered the city’s first farms and mills…
Discovery halts school construction as historians scramble to map the 300-year-old gates…
Officials: “It is an amazing glimpse into the survival mechanics of the early settlers”…

Ruins discovered in San Pedro Creek Park District construction zone will get historic marker

For eight months in 1872, Samuel Galitzen Newton served as mayor of San Antonio.

The former Confederate captain and attorney died six years later, and the site of his home became San Antonio’s first public high school. That was 1882.

Last year, what remains of the Newton house was uncovered along with the ruins of an acequia system, or irrigation ditches, that once provided water to the area.

When construction of San Antonio ISD’s Fox Tech High School campus is completed in 2027, a historic marker will be placed at the site of the discovery.

Due to its location in downtown San Antonio, the district is required by city and state code to complete an archaeological study and, if discoveries are made, to contact the city’s Office of Historic Preservation and the Texas Historical Commission.

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