With blessings from Native American and Catholic priests, to represent the confluence of cultures in the Americas, San Antonio today kicked off the second annual World Heritage Festival, designed to commemorate the designation of the Spanish Colonial Missions as the only World Heritage Site in Texas, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
"It is an honor to be part of a global community that celebrates the legacy of all of mankind," Mayor Ron Nirenberg said.
The Festival, which runs through this weekend, will include living history events, historic seminars, as well as bike rides and 10k runs around the Missions.
"World Heritage Sites belong to all of the peoples of the world, no matter whose territory on which they are located," Nirenberg said. "The world is welcome to San Antonio's front porch."
County Judge Nelson Wolff said one of the requirements that comes with World Heritage Site designation is that the significance of the site in the development of the human experience by explained.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization officials inscribed the Missions as a World Heritage Site in a special event in July of 2015.