Site of the Mission Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria (2nd Marker)

The mission at El Canon never had official standing. The viceroy in Mexico City never sanctioned it or gave it adequate money, and it was founded just as France was arranging to cede Louisiana to Spain, so the threat of French encroachment could no longer be used to pry funds from the crown. When the Marques de Rubi visited in July 1767 he saw no hope of converting them. Spanish presence at El Canon ended in 1771, when the San Lorenzo priests were sent to Sonora.

What the plaque says

Site of the Mission Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria (2nd Marker) First established by Franciscan missionaries in 1749 on the San Gabriel River with the hope of civilizing and Christianizing the Coco, Mayene, Karankawa, Orcoquiza and other Indian tribes. Restablished under the same name on the San Marcos River in 1755. Removed to this site on the Nueces River for the conversion of the Lipan Apaches in 1762. Abandoned in 1769.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Garner State Park — 17 mi
  The Frio River park that Uvalde County built with the Civilian Conservation Corps and named for its own vice president, where people have danced on the stone pavilion every summer since the 1940s.
• Real County Historical Museum — 20 mi
  A small county museum in Leakey, at the head of the Frio Canyon, with a log-cabin parlor, an 1880s horse-drawn hearse, a wool and mohair shearing machine and 1910s jail cells.
• Briscoe-Garner Museum — 26 mi
  The Uvalde house of John Nance Garner, the vice president who made the office a power in Congress, now a free museum to him and to Governor Dolph Briscoe.
• Uvalde Grand Opera House — 26 mi
  An 1891 Victorian opera house on the Uvalde square with a turret and a dragon weathervane, once owned by John Nance Garner and still staging volunteer theater upstairs.

More markers nearby

• Near Site of Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria Mission — steps away
• General John R. Baylor — steps away
• Montell Methodist Church — steps away
• Charles A. Lindbergh in Texas — 9.0 mi