San Antonio River Walk gets eight-mile extension
San Antonio has just opened a new eight-mile addition to the River Walk along the San Antonio River in one of the nation’s largest ecosystem restoration projects.
Built in the 1930s, the original River Walk winds through the historic section of downtown San Antonio, connecting restaurants, shops, theaters and historic sites.
The Mission Reach area at the southern end is of particular historical significance, linking four missions built in the 1700s, the largest collection of Spanish colonial architecture in North America.
The River Walk is one of the most-visited sites in Texas and one of the most-recognized attractions in the United States.
In the 1950s, after years of devastating floods, the Mission Reach was engineered into a trapezoidal storm water channel by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. Though it worked well for flood control, the change left this area almost devoid of plants and fish.
The San Antonio River Improvements Project has spent $358.3 million on the project, which will restore the river’s natural environments and aquatic habitat, and add more than 23,000 trees and hundreds of acres of native grasses and wildflowers.
It offers hiking, biking and paddling, designed to "reconnect people with the river."
The Mission Reach project already has attracted scientists and other visitors from China, India, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Malaysia, Germany, Canada, Mexico and Taiwan, who are considering similar river restoration projects in their own countries.
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