Mission Espada San Fransisco Church




Founded in East Texas in 1690, Mission San Francisco de Tejas was the first Spanish Mission in Texas. It was a strategic point and acted as protection from the French in Lousiana. After fires, floods, and diseases ravished the mission, it was moved to the San Antonio River in 1731. At this time the name was changed to Mission San Francisco de la Espada. The Franciscan missionaries allied with the Coahuitecan natives of Central Texas and over a fifty year period the hunter gatherers learned European skills like masonry, blacksmithing, and loom weaving as they integrated with the Spanish.
 

The mission bells 🔔would clang 3 times a day as the hot Texas Sun shined down on the fertile lands of the Texas mission. The reason the land was so fertile was because the Spanish built an extensive aqueduct system from the San Antonio River to irrigate the lands for crops like corn, melon, pumpkins, and cotton. 🌽 🍈 🎃 The 18th century aqueducts were an architectural feat and are still standing to this day. In 1794 Mission Espada began the process of secularization and the fifteen families of the mission received the land. In 1826 the Comanche raided the crops and killed the livestock. 🐄 🐐 🐑 A kitchen fire burned most of the buildings but the chapel survived.



Mission Espada is the southernmost of the San Antonio missions. On my visit I was impressed with the flowers and garden at the site.🌻 This mission is small but mighty in beauty and in good care. Very quaint. After secularization in the 1820s, the mission buildings were gradually abandoned. In 1858 when Father Francis Bouchu arrived, the buildings and church were all but forgotten. He rebuilt the convent and added a general store. In 1911 the chapel had a new roof, floor, windows, doors, and ceiling. Like the other San Antonio missions, the New Deal in the 1930s allocated funds to restore the sites. Mission Espada is now a UNESCO world heritage site.


-WAM-

October, 2021

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