Exploring the San Antonio Missions, San Antonio, Texas

What a wonderful holiday weekend. I flew down to San Antonio to spend time with my new beaux, David. After a relaxing Thursday evening, we spent Friday riding bikes a long the green belt to tour all the missions, now named a World Heritage Site.

The City of San Antonio owes its existence to the rich mission heritage. A mission was an institution used by the Spanish to transplant their culture to frontier regions. The missions taught native people not only the Catholic faith, but also many occupational skills and the way of the Spanish government.

We started out at Mission Espada which was founded in East Texas in 1690 as San Francisco de Los Tejas. The oldest East Texas mission was moved to the San Antonio River in 1731 and was renamed to San Francisco de la Espada. Here, the Spanish Franciscan mission taught American Indians farming, black smithing, weaving, masonry and more. It was the only San Antonio Mission that made brick and tile. The Spanish language and Catholicism was the adopted way of life of the 52 families that called the mission home.

The compound was expanded in 1770 to include a granary as the earlier granary was converted to a church. Its acequia, a spanish watercourse, has operated continuously since 1745! Today the mission is the most complete complex of the San Antonio Missions and is a very active parish. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).