Frank Minako with the Christopher
Columbus Italian society says for
decades they couldn't figure out why a
portion of their parking lot wouldn't
stay paved the asphalt keeps coming up
is always wet and we always have a hard
time with her little did they know a
spring from the neighboring San Pedro
Creek runs directly underneath the
building in downtown San Antonio a
spring archaeologists now believe is the
original location of Mission San Antonio
de Valero now known as the Alamo we knew
we're in a very old area of San Antonio
but we did not we did not believe that
this had anything to do with their
actual founding of the city city
archaeologist K Heinz made the discovery
back in February while overseeing a tree
project for Monaco's up-and-coming
Italian village called Little Italy the
first thing I saw were pieces of wrought
iron and wrought iron shouldn't be here
Heinz teamed up with the Center for
archeological research to excavate a
nine square foot patch behind the
building tracing artifacts back to 1718
a small glass trade bead a LED disc
pretty excited about the possibility
because I mean how many times do you
just you know walk them to a site like
that you actually see colonial artifacts
eroding out of the ground Hines says
archival records show Spanish settlers
shifted the mission to San Antonio de
Valero three times within a one-mile
radius the La Villita area and the Alamo
were the final two moves but no one
could pinpoint the first location it's
very exciting you know knowing that this
is a really a potential hot spot for us
and and there's a lot to be learned you
know so we're just scratching the
surface literally the San Antonio
Conservation Society gave a five
thousand dollar grant to fund the dig
although they agree there is more to do
probably means we need to do a whole lot
more fundraising and
to be ready for the next phase of the
project local archaeologists aren't
completely ready to confirm their
findings because they would like to
discover at least one more artifact a
blue and white ceramic which they
believe could be buried underneath this
parking lot a historical site underneath
a historical site this very same land is
also home to the original Italian colony
Minako says the timing can only help
with the launch of his Little Italy
dream and wonders if this could be
divine providence
you