Mission San Francisco de la Espada (Mission St. Francis of the Sword)

An inventory of 1772, taken when the missionaries of Querétaro handed Espada to the College of Zacatecas, shows a working farm. Two fields were fenced with strong mesquite limbs nailed and tied together, the larger in corn and beans, the smaller in cotton and corn, and a fenced orchard held peach trees and vegetables. The buildings stood unfinished for lack of stone. By 1804 Espada counted thirty-seven Indian and fifty-seven Spanish residents, and in 1820 its alcalde hired a teacher. In February 1834 residents protested the sale of mission land to José Antonio de la Garza.

What the plaque says

Mission San Francisco de la Espada (Mission St. Francis of the Sword) Established in San Antonio in 1731. May have been named for statue of St. Francis in the chapel which, according to tradition, once grapsed a sword. One of the few missions near which descenants of the Indian converts and spaniards still live, Espada is considered by some to date back to Mission San Francisco De Los Tejas, founded in East Texas in 1690. A succession moves eventually brought it here. The original buildings at Espada, the farthest south of the five missions near San Antonio, were undoubtly of adobe. A wall surrounded the church (usually called a chapel), friary, granary,and work shops. Extensive farms and pastures lay nearby. By 1745 the Indians produced grain and beans, and the missioned owned 1,150 head of cattle and 750 sheep. One of the few remaining early structures is the southeast bastion (fortified round tower), which is the only mission fort left intact in San Antonio. Its three-foot rock walls, which contain holes for cannons and muskets, support a vaulted roof. Composing Espada's once-vital waterworks are a dam (one mile north), an irriation ditch, and a fine aqueduct (near this site)--the only extant spanich aqueduct in the United States. (1969)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mission Espada and the Espada Aqueduct — steps away
  The southernmost San Antonio mission and the oldest Spanish aqueduct in the United States, still carrying river water over Sixmile Creek to the fields after nearly three centuries.
• Mission San Juan — 1.1 mi
  The mission near the river bend where the San Antonio got its name in 1691, with an unfinished church foundation and farm fields still watered by an eighteenth-century acequia.
• San Antonio Missions National Historical Park — 3.4 mi
  Four working parish churches on the Mission Trail south of downtown, with the visitor center at Mission San Jose, the Queen of the Missions, and the descendants who still worship there.
• Mission Concepción — 5.6 mi
  A stone church dedicated in 1755 that has never fallen into ruin, its convento ceilings still painted, and the ground where the Texas Revolution's fight for San Antonio began.

More markers nearby

• Mission San Juan Capistrano — 1.0 mi
• Stinson Airport — 1.8 mi
• Edward H. White II Memorial Hangar, Brooks Air Force Base — 1.8 mi
• Salado Valley — 4.3 mi