Mission San Jose

A simple wood chair sits outside the priest's quarters at San Antonio's historic Mission San Francisco de la Espada. Mission Espada, founded in 169...
Read more

A simple wood chair sits outside the priest's quarters at San Antonio's historic Mission San Francisco de la Espada. Mission Espada, founded in 1690 as San Francisco de los Tejas, is the oldest of the East Texas missions. The mission moved to San Antonio in 1731 under the name San Francisco de la Espada. The Spanish Mission enterprise, by government-church policy, sought to recreate Spanish village life, where indigenous inhabitants learned vocations from the Franciscan friars--e.g., agriculture, weaving, blacksmithing, carpentry, masonry, stone-cutting, and brick-making. [Mission Espada was the only San Antonio mission that made bricks.] Sitting on the southern edge of San Antonio, Mission Espada still retains the feel of an isolated mission on the Texas frontier. A small group of Franciscan brothers still serve the picturesque mission church.

Mission Espada is part of the United States National Park Service's San Antonio Missions National Historical Park.

The Missions of San Antonio (The Alamo & San Antonio Missions National Historical Park) is an inscribed UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Read less