University of the Incarnate Word Campus Tour

The Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word came to San Antonio to nurse the sick and teach, and in 1897 they settled on the old Brackenridge estate at the head of the San Antonio River. A girls' academy on the grounds grew into a college that awarded its first bachelor's degree in 1910. Today the university shares its hilltop with the sisters' motherhouse, chapel and gardens. This walk moves from the college's historic buildings through the sisters' grounds and down to the Blue Hole, the spring where the river starts.

The University of the Incarnate Word shares a hilltop at the head of the San Antonio River with the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, the order that founded it, and this walk weaves together campus history, the sisters' faith and one of the city's most important springs.

The sisters came to San Antonio to care for the sick and to teach. They received a charter to teach in 1881, have been on this site since 1897, and ran an academy whose college courses led to a first bachelor's degree in 1910. That history is laid out on the Heritage Wall inside the Administration Building, a National Register landmark that opened in 1922.

Quieter corners carry the spiritual side of the story. The Lourdes Grotto, modeled on the French shrine, was built by the sisters in 1904 from limestone cut from the campus cliffs, and on mild days classes sometimes gather on its benches. The Marjorie Jordan Carillon chimes every half hour, and at 3 each afternoon it plays the Hymn of the Incarnate Word.

Nature gets its turn at the Headwaters Sanctuary, a 53-acre preserve owned by the sisters that shelters the Blue Hole, long counted as the source of the San Antonio River. Its trails are free and open to everyone, a green, peaceful pocket in the middle of the city.