SAN ANTONIO – From hand-written documents dating back to the 1700s to gifts from San Antonio’s sister cities around the world, a new museum showcases three centuries of municipal history.
The Municipal Archives Museum, located at 719 South Santa Rosa St., officially opened to the public on Nov. 1.
The building where the museum is located is best known as the City’s Vital Records Office — where residents pick up copies of birth certificates — but it also houses San Antonio’s city archives.
Now, for the first time, those records and artifacts will be on display for everyone to see.
“This museum will actually go all the way back before the city was founded — to the Indigenous population that was here, the Presidio soldiers, and the Canary Islanders who founded our city in 1731,” City Clerk Debbie Racca-Sittre said.
The collection includes official city documents, maps, artifacts and photographs. Racca-Sittre said some of the oldest records are written in Spanish from the city’s early years under Spanish rule.
Among the featured items are a letter written by Santa Anna discovered in San Antonio and historic maps of the Alamo grounds showing what the site once looked like.
The museum also showcases gifts from San Antonio’s 11 sister cities, including those from China, Japan and Korea.
Racca-Sittre said the project was made possible through 2022 bond funding.
“It’s really great for us to keep the history so that people will know where our city began and how have we progressed over the years, what kind of major milestones, what things happened,” she said.
The Municipal Archives Museum is free and open to the public on weekdays; however, appointments are required. Click here for more information.
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