Miraflores: San Antonio's Mexican Garden of Memory

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A book by Anne Elise Urrutia, with a foreword by Tomás Ybarra-Frausto. Signed by the author.

Aureliano Urrutia, a prominent physician from Mexico City, created a 5-acre garden Miraflores garden after immigrating to Texas during the Mexican Revolution. A man of science, Urrutia also professed the importance of nature, literature, history, music and community, and wanted this multi-layered landscape to reflect his love for and memory of his native Mexico. The garden was built from 1921 to 1962, with sculptures created by Mexican artists and artisans, fountains, Talavera tile benches, and native plant species, all evoking the ideals of Mexican culture. Today the garden stands in ruins, but in Miraflores: San Antonio’s Mexican Garden of Memory, Urrutia's unique garden reveals a message of Mexican cultural heritage.

A book by Anne Elise Urrutia, with a foreword by Tomás Ybarra-Frausto. Signed by the author.

Aureliano Urrutia, a prominent physician from Mexico City, created a 5-acre garden Miraflores garden after immigrating to Texas during the Mexican Revolution. A man of science, Urrutia also professed the importance of nature, literature, history, music and community, and wanted this multi-layered landscape to reflect his love for and memory of his native Mexico. The garden was built from 1921 to 1962, with sculptures created by Mexican artists and artisans, fountains, Talavera tile benches, and native plant species, all evoking the ideals of Mexican culture. Today the garden stands in ruins, but in Miraflores: San Antonio’s Mexican Garden of Memory, Urrutia's unique garden reveals a message of Mexican cultural heritage.

About the Author: Anne Elise Urrutia is a writer and explorer of family history, especially the life, work, and legacy of her great grandfather, Dr. Aureliano Urrutia, a renowned surgeon who came to San Antonio in 1914 as an exile of the Mexican Revolution.

As a teenager in the late 1970s, Elise’s interest in journalism inspired her to venture into Miraflores to photograph Urrutia’s disappearing family garden, which he had created from 1921 to 1962 as an expression of his connection to Mexico. After further traversing the family history through extensive conversations with her father, Elise’s personal journey took her deeper into ancestral territory, and inspired her to recreate, through words and pictures, the doctor’s lost landscape. She was delighted to find herself transported to this beautiful and expressive place, near the headwaters of the San Antonio River, to receive her bisabuelo’s powerful messages of cultural heritage.

In 2023, Elise received an International Latino Book Award, silver medal, the Mimi Lozano Best History Book award. And in 2025, she received a San Antonio Conservation Society Foundation Publication Award, which recognizes authors of the best recently published books on Texas history. Elise received her English degree from Colorado College, blogs at quintaurrutia.com, and lives in San Antonio, Texas. Her book, “Miraflores, San Antonio’s Mexican garden of memory,” was published in June 2022 by Trinity University Press.