The Brackenridge Park Conservancy unveils a new guided art map to highlight San Antonio’s historic park treasures.
SAN ANTONIO — Brackenridge Park isn’t just one of San Antonio’s favorite green spaces—it’s a place with stories stretching back hundreds of years.
And now, exploring that history just got easier.
The Brackenridge Park Conservancy has rolled out a brand-new guided art map, making it simple to track down the park’s hidden treasures—statues, sculptures, and pieces you may have walked past without even realizing.
“We wanted to bring this art to the public. And the park is difficult to find your way around, so we created not only this art map, but a historic map. So, you can look at these things as you’re enjoying the park. And so, this was part of our new website relaunch, and it has identified the locations of the art pieces,” Lynn Osborne Bobbitt, Director of Development and Outreach for Brackenridge Park Conservancy said.
“And we’re proud to bring this to the community so that they can understand the depth of the history here in the park, not only the built environment, but the art that is here for everybody to enjoy.”
The 400-acre park, being much bigger than most people notice, includes Brackenridge Golf Course, San Antonio Zoo, the Japanese Tea Garden and other popular attractions with some of the artwork found in high-trafficked areas while others were placed in isolated locations.
But Bobbitt said many visitors and even homegrown San Antonians don’t know about these beautiful artworks found within the wilderness.
“I think some of them are hidden gems because they’re in the wilderness area and you don’t see them unless you’re walking. Others, you drive by every day and don’t look at or notice,” Bobbitt said.
She said most people notice the Japanese Tea Garden Entrance Gate and the Lion statue located on Broadway at Lions Field, but forget about others like her favorites, the Faux Bois artworks by Dionicio Rodriguez that’s shaped from concrete to look like trees or wood.
“It’s made to look like nature. And what better place than in Brackenridge Park? I know there are some of his other pieces throughout the city, but the park has the largest number of pieces of his work, and I just think they fit in beautifully. It was said in a newspaper article that the birds and the animals were confused – that [the faux bois] were so lifelike, the woodpeckers would come and try and pick the wood, but it was cement,” Bobbitt said while laughing.
More modern pieces were added in 2006 as part of a city bond project and the works were created by several local artists like Susan Budge who crafted the Anaqua Wildlife Trailhead and the Acequia Waterworks Trailhead and Diana Kersey who assembled the Life Cycle of the Gulf Coast Toad. Bobbitt said the last art installation was added between 2006 and 2012.
“And at that time, also the city turned many of the driving trails or carriage trails into walking paths. And so particularly some of that later art was done to denote the wilderness trails, so that people could identify where they are. It’s so important for us to get out in nature and enjoy the outdoors. And this map, we hope, will draw more people into the park,” Bobbitt said.
“I grew up here in San Antonio, and I’ve lived here all my life. And we’d like to encourage, people who are moving to San Antonio, the younger people who are growing up here now, and then young professionals to take this park seriously and to become one of the stewards of the park for the future, so that it is sustained for people to use – and that’s not only protecting the riverbanks, but the vegetation and the wilderness area, as well as the art and historic structures.”
Bobbitt says eventually the new art installations guided map and virtual tour will become interactive, so users can click on landmarks and artworks and be notified where they are in relation to the park.