Shortly after the fall of the Alamo a group of Irish settlers in San Antonio, led by a Mr. William E. Howth, established and platted a new city called Avoca two-and-one-half miles north of downtown San Antonio at the headwaters of the San Antonio River.
Until 1842 lots were sold, streets named, and some homes partially or completely built. When the city leaders realized that whoever owned the land at the head of the river virtually controlled the river, a Spanish land grant was used as the basis of San Antonio's expansion of its outer limits to include Avoca. This effectively put an end to Mr. Howth's dream city of Avoca which probably would have been to the Irish what New Braunfels is to the German community.
Avoca is listed in the Texas Almanac as one of forty famous Texas ghost towns, although not as "lost" as the almanac might think. The word "Avoca" comes from a place in County Wicklow, Ireland (near Dublin), where two rivers meet and called the vale of Avoca. The latter was made famous in a poem and song by Thomas Moore, "The Meeting of the Waters.” It is likely that the meeting place of the Olmos Creek and the San Antonio River headwaters on campus might originally have reminded these Irish settlers of that lovely place in the Wicklow Mountains.
Today, our dry spells tend to make the 'meeting of the waters' at the headwaters of the San Antonio River much more cyclical, but Avoca at the University of the Incarnate Word (UIW) remains. On October 5, 2000 Avoca at the UIW was blessed and the building named for the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. Four of the sisters present for the occasion came to the United States from Ireland.
(Ccvi Newsletter, Dick McCracken, Oct - 2000)
Until 1842 lots were sold, streets named, and some homes partially or completely built. When the city leaders realized that whoever owned the land at the head of the river virtually controlled the river, a Spanish land grant was used as the basis of San Antonio's expansion of its outer limits to include Avoca. This effectively put an end to Mr. Howth's dream city of Avoca which probably would have been to the Irish what New Braunfels is to the German community.
Avoca is listed in the Texas Almanac as one of forty famous Texas ghost towns, although not as "lost" as the almanac might think. The word "Avoca" comes from a place in County Wicklow, Ireland (near Dublin), where two rivers meet and called the vale of Avoca. The latter was made famous in a poem and song by Thomas Moore, "The Meeting of the Waters.” It is likely that the meeting place of the Olmos Creek and the San Antonio River headwaters on campus might originally have reminded these Irish settlers of that lovely place in the Wicklow Mountains.
Today, our dry spells tend to make the 'meeting of the waters' at the headwaters of the San Antonio River much more cyclical, but Avoca at the University of the Incarnate Word (UIW) remains. On October 5, 2000 Avoca at the UIW was blessed and the building named for the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. Four of the sisters present for the occasion came to the United States from Ireland.
(Ccvi Newsletter, Dick McCracken, Oct - 2000)
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