San Antonio, Texas
(Watercolor by James Gilchrist Benton on
Amon Carter Museum of American Art)
The Plaza des Armas in front of the former
Spanish Governor's Palace and behind the San Fernando Church would have been among the areas Santa Anna would have paraded his troops before storming the Alamo, and it would have not been much different than James Gilchrist Benton's 1852 watercolor above.
Before it was filled by the
Victorian-era City Hall in 1891, the relabeled Military Plaza behind the upgrading cathedral was a dustily popular Old West market square locally famed for its "Chili Queens" food stalls:
(Photo by Mary E. Jacobson and hosted by Southern Methodist University Libraries Digital Collections on Flickr,
Military Plaza. Market)
Panoramic view, circa 1910, likely taken from the former cupola dome of city hall and looking east over the San Fernando Cathedral:
(Photo from Haines Photo Co. hosted on the Library of Congress,
Panoramic View of San Antonio, Texas)
To the right of the cathedral can be seen the dark, Romanesque Revival towers of the landmark
Bexar County Courthouse. Both the courthouse and the cathedral directly face the former Plaza de las Islas, today's civic Main Plaza.
Recent similar composite panorama view from Google Earth:
(Imagery from Google Earth)
That imagery is from before 2017, as the tree-filled block at the leftmost edge of the image has today topped-out as a new, mirror-glass
Frost Tower. Interesting, in the 1910 panorama can be seen a small building bearing the sign "Frost National Bank" just to the left of the cathedral. It would grow into the larger historicist building seen in the modern panorama, and then grow yet again into the Brutalist tower slab even further left. The new tower will open next year, and City Hall, which grew into the historicist building Frost Bank had left for their Brutalist headquarters, will then follow Frost Bank yet again to move into the Brutalist building Frost is leaving for their new shiny tower.