Alamo Heights is located five miles northeast of the center of San Antonio in north central Bexar County. The area below the headwaters of the San Antonio River in Alamo Heights was an Indian campground and haven for many explorers and troops; visitors included Fray Damián Massanet. He celebrated Mass at the spot in 1691 and changed the name from Yanaguana to San Antonio de Padua. In 1718, with the founding of San Antonio de Béxar, the use of the headwaters was guaranteed to the missionaries and early settlers. In 1731 the Canary Islanders were granted similar rights to the use of the river. [See Bexar County History]

In 1836 the land known as Alamo Heights was included as public land in the original survey of the city of San Antonio, but in December 1837 a city ordinance provided for sale of public lands at auction to provide funds for city improvements. Despite controversy over the proposed sale, the site of Alamo Heights was purchased by James R. Sweet. After several sales, the property was bought by Mrs. Isabel Brackenridge in 1869. In 1897 her son, George W. Brackenridge, sold the family estate, Fernridge, and 200 acres of land containing the springs of the San Antonio River to the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. Incarnate Word College is on the boundary line between San Antonio and Alamo Heights, and Fernridge is preserved by the sisters as a museum building.

Alamo Heights was also the location of the "Arsenal Lot," donated by San Antonio to the federal government as an arsenal site in 1852 and returned to the donor in 1859. Charles Anderson bought the site in 1860, established a ranch, and built a home that subsequently became the Argyle Hotel. William McLane bought the property in 1861. Around 1890 his son, Hiram H. McLane, sold the area to a development company. Progress was slow until 1909, when Clifton George took over the company and began a program of expansion that included an adequate school building for the growing community.

Texas Military Institute was located in Alamo Heights from 1911 to 1989. Adjacent to the Argyle Hotel is Cathedral House, headquarters of the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas. On Cathedral House grounds are the headwaters of the San Antonio River, described in diaries of Mary Adams Maverick in 1839 and a visiting Englishman, James Freemantle, in 1863. Newspapers that have been published in Alamo Heights include the Alamo Heights Herald in the 1920s and the Alamo Heights News, from 1939 to the early 1960s.

Somerset is fifteen miles southwest of San Antonio in Bexar County. It was named for a settlement that had begun in 1848 three miles farther south, in what is now Atascosa County, by a group of Baptist families from Somerset, Kentucky. In 1913, while drilling for artesian water, Carl Kurz discovered oil. The Somerset oilfield extended from Somerset to below Pleasanton. The town grew rapidly from fifty residents in 1925 to 700 in 1928; it was served by a state bank, a ten-room hotel, and several machine and blacksmith shops. A post office opened there in 1920. A nearby coal mine also added to the booming economy of the area. During the 1920s farmers turned from cotton to dryland fruit and vegetable farming. In 1931 the Somerset Fruit Growers Exchange building was dedicated, and between truck farming, oil, and coal, the town prospered until the mid-1930s, when diminishing oil returns and the Great Depression caused a decline. In 1920 the Somerset Independent School District was formed from at least five other school districts: Wildman, Senior, Bexar, Old Rock (Old Somerset area), and Oak Island. Somerset was incorporated in 1973.

Universal City is at the north gate of Randolph Air Force Base on the northern edge of San Antonio in northeast Bexar County. It was named by the developer, A. Milner, to designate the universal importance of the air base. Randolph Field opened on October 25, 1931, and the first business to open outside the gate in 1932 was a service station. Other businesses during the 1930s were Randolph Cleaners in 1932 and Kneupper's Garage in 1935. Pat Booker Road (SH 218), which is the main street and the entrance to Randolph AFB, was built in 1936 and named after Capt. Francis O. Booker, a pilot who served at Randolph and was later killed in an airplane crash at Montgomery, Alabama. The first restaurant, Beaty's, opened in 1939. Until 1960 the town grew slowly. The owner of Acme Lumber Company, Johnny Chuoke, began the first profitable development of Universal City in 1950. He built the first homes in the Rosegarden area, and other builders followed. The town has a newspaper called the Herald, and it was the first community in Bexar County to have cable television. In 1963 the city got its first bank, and in 1971 it finally received a post office. Universal City is 90 percent active and retired military. The city was incorporated in 1960. Franklin Bless was the first mayor. The mayor in 1989 was the town's first woman mayor, Carmeline Squires.