Mission Espada: 1731-1824

Mission Espada, the southernmost of San Antonio's five Spanish missions, was established on the west bank of the San Antonio River in 1731. The small missionary-led community first built crude huts called jacales, which were later replaced by sturdier structures. By the middle 1740s a stone chapel had been completed, and work continued on a wall to protect against hostile Indian raids. Other buildings included the convento, Indian houses, and workrooms for cooking, weaving, and grain storage. A stone dam three miles upstream diverted river water into a hand-dug acequia that carried water to the mission for agricultural and household use. In the 1760s, missionaries acquired Rancho de las Cabras, about thirty miles away, to care for Espada's growing herds of livestock. At its peak, the mission had about two hundred residents. Beginning in the 1790s, the mission and its surrounding lands were transferred to the community through secularization, and cattle and other goods were distributed to residents, some of whom continued to live and farm nearby. The mission structures fell into disrepair, and most were abandoned by 1824, when secularization was completed.

San Antonio, Texas · United States