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934
there but a few years, then moved east on Main Street near the graveyard and powder house, then used as an arsenal. One of my childhood pleasures was to go to
the powder house and watch Mr. Lollard, the caretaker, make paper cartridges.
In those days all of the ditches were full of running water. The ditch west of San Antonio River ran down North Flores Street part of the way, turned east and then south and ran on the west side of Main Plaza in front of the Southern Hotel. There were two ditches east of the San Antonio River. The first one ran back of the Alamo and under the Menger Hotel. The other ditch was farther east on what is now called Water Street. Most of the houses were built on the river and the ditch convenient to water.
At the river crossing on Commerce Street there was a very low bridge, and somewhat of. a hill to pull on the east bank. There was a large spring on the north side of the bridge on the east bank, where all the neighbors procured their water. Houston Street had very few houses on it then. The Mavericks had an orchard fenced with cedar pickets, where the Moore building now stands and it ran up to the present location of the -Gibbs building where Mr. Maverick lived. He had one of the finest pecan trees in his yard that could be found anywhere, and there were some large cottonwood trees back of the Alamo, which gave that historic building its name, as Alamo means cottonwood in Spanish.
The plazas were like duck ponds as the water would stand there for days after a rain. The old pioneers who I recollect were Messrs. Lewis, Maverick, Menger,