San Antonio de Senecu

Senecú del Sur was settled in the spring of 1682 by Piro people from the pueblo of Senecú in New Mexico, two leagues from present Ciudad Juárez. The missions were reorganized in 1683, and Senecú may have moved then. It had seventy families in 1744. The El Paso missions were secularized in 1756 and returned to missionaries in 1771. A sudden change in the Rio Grande's course probably destroyed the settlement early in the nineteenth century.

What the plaque says

San Antonio de Senecu Approximate site of the mission and pueblo. Established by Don Antonio de Otermin and Father Fray Francisco Ayeta, O.F.M. in 1682. Maintained by Franciscan missionaries for the civilizing and Christianizing of the Piro and Tompiro Indians.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ysleta Mission (Corpus Christi de la Ysleta del Sur) — 1.5 mi
  The Tigua mission church at Ysleta, rebuilt in 1908 around the walls, bell and Santo Entierro that came through fire, its interior painted with rain clouds and corn.
• Tigua Indian Cultural Center, Ysleta del Sur Pueblo — 2.3 mi
  The cultural center of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, the Tigua nation that has lived in the Mission Valley of El Paso since 1682 and keeps its own history here.
• Socorro Mission (Nuestra Senora de la Limpia Concepcion del Socorro) — 4.1 mi
  Socorro's adobe church on the El Paso Mission Trail, with walls five feet thick, carved vigas from an older church and a statue of Saint Michael said to have chosen the town.
• Chamizal National Memorial — 7.7 mi
  A park on land the Rio Grande once put in dispute, where a century-old border quarrel between the United States and Mexico was settled by treaty and a new concrete channel.

More markers nearby

• Captain Frank Jones — steps away
• Corpus Christi de la Ysleta — 1.5 mi
• Oldest Mission in Texas — 1.5 mi
• Alderete-Candelaria House — 1.6 mi