Near Site of Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria Mission

Two Lipan Apache leaders, Turnio and Panocha, asked Felipe de Rabago y Teran to let their people gather four leagues below Mission San Lorenzo. Candelaria opened on February 6, 1762, on the west bank of the east branch of the Nueces, with Father Diego Jimenez as missionary and ten soldiers from the San Saba presidio as its guard. Its fields were cleared but poorly worked, Texas Beyond History notes, and Comanche raids threatened Lipan hunting. The Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas says Comanche, Wichita and Tejas attacks forced the Lipans away in 1766.

What the plaque says

Near Site of Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria Mission Third mission under this name founded in Texas. Established near here on the Nueces River in 1762 by Franciscan missionaries for the conversion of the Indians and protection of Spanish lands. Typical of many Spanish missions in Texas, Candelaria had twice moved closer to centers of civilization since its first founding in 1749 on the San Gabriel River. Beset with friction between friars and soldiers, the first Candelaria was abandoned in 1755 and then moved to the San Marcos River. Soon, however, the friars found that the Indians were more concerned with protection than with Christianity. In 1757 the mission was again discontinued. In 1762 Candelaria was re-established here, and about 100 Lipan-Apaches quickly volunteered to live within its walls. A chapel, large thatched building, a house, and possibly other structures were erected. But once more, difficulties arose-- scarcity of meat, unrest and insincerity among the mission Indians, inadequate defense, devastating raids by Comanches and Apaches. About 1767 the mission was abandoned for the last time. Little remains of it today, for the smooth building stones were taken by Anglo settlers in the 1800s to build their houses. (1968)

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

• Site of the Mission Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria (2nd Marker) — steps away
• General John R. Baylor — steps away
• Montell Methodist Church — steps away
• Charles A. Lindbergh in Texas — 9.0 mi