History of Texas, Together with a Biographical History of Milam, Williamson, Bastrop, Travis, Lee and Burleson Counties. Page: 219

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tlle St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas Railroad.
White sulphur and chalybeate springs are
numerous in the vicinity. The place is
growing rapidly.
San Antonio is, as shown by the last
United States census, the largest city in
Texas. It is by far the prettiest, the most
healthful, and has the finest drinking water
of all cities anywhere, and her visible water
supply is more than sufficient for a city of
two millions of people. That this is no exaggeration
may be seen by remembering that
the San Antonio river, with a width of from
thirty to seventy-five feet of purest, clearest
water averaging from five to six feet deep,
flows right through the middle of the city
with a current of more than twelve miles an
hour; and the San Pedro springs send a
third as much through the city in the old
acequias dug by the Spanish missionaries
nearly 200 years ago; then it has one
public artesian well right in the main
business part of the city that flows over
3,500,000 gallons a day. This gives a
public supply of more than 30,000,000 gallons
of water a day, and its clearness, purity
and sweetness are marvels to scientists as
well as to visitors. Besides this, factories,
ice works, the United States Government
headquarters, laundries, breweries and private
premises have a large number of wells,
making the present flow of water within the
corporate limits of San Antonio more than
45,000,000 gallons a day.
There is no climate yet known that equals
that surrounding San Antonio. Southwest
Texas, as shown by the most carefully kept
statistics and scientific observations, surpasses
any known country. Consumption,
catarrh, malarial and typhus complaints are
unknown among the natives here, and those
coining here in the early stages of lung dis

eases recover, and a great improvement immediately
follows any stage. The evennes-s
of temperature in this section is conducive
to healthfulness. The highest temperature
in 1890 was 96 in July, and the lowest 24
in February, and the air is almost perfectly
dry except when raining. It was these facts
of healthfulness, purity of water and mnildness
and evenness of temperature that caused
the Spanish missionaries to select San Antonio
and southwest Texas as their abode
and headquarters. As soon as the truth is
known hundreds of thousands of people will
flock to this section.
In the way of climate, air, water, soil,
scenery and unlimited resources, nature has
blessed this section of the United States
above almost any country on earth. Ten
years ago a city of 20,000 inhabitants, with
'scarcely any modern business houses, with
but one street worthy the name of a business
street, with plazas, muddy eye-sores, streets
unpaved and with few sidewalks, we find
to-day a modern city of 41,181 inhabitants,
and improvements completed and under construction
that place the "Alamo City" in the
front rank of Southern cities in appearance
and in appliances for comfort.
As to municipal improvements the rapid
increase in the assessed values of the city has
enabled the authorities to inaugurate unprecedented
expenditures in this direction, while
the tax rate has been actually reduced from
that of four years ago, and now stands at 1
per cent., a rate lower than that paid in any
large city in the United States; and there are
more than 155 miles of water mains in San
Antonio, nearly 75 miles of paved streets,
more than 125 miles of smooth cement sidewalks
and the best electric street-car system of
all cities in the United States-seventy-five
miles.

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RISTO Y OFTEXAS.'