Main/Military Plaza

Main and Military Plazas define the early heart of San Antonio, recognizable by the dramatic, limestone-walled San Fernando Cathedral rising between them. Established in seventeen twenty-two, Military Plaza—or Plaza de Armas—began as a parade ground and market for Spanish soldiers garrisoned at the nearby fort. Across the way, Main Plaza, or Plaza de las Islas, followed in seventeen thirty-one as the civic center for the Canary Islander families who founded the city’s first civil government.