The Pajalache Acequia (Ditch)

The people who gave the ditch its name are known only from the eighteenth century. The Pajalat, also written Pajalache and many other ways, ranged south of San Antonio between the Frio and San Antonio rivers, and many entered Concepción and Espada missions when they were set up here in 1731. A Pajalat chief was the first governor of the Indian settlement at Concepción. They spoke a Coahuiltecan dialect, and as late as 1820 a rise near the city was still called Los Pajalaches Hill. A few later went to Refugio Mission after it moved in 1791.

What the plaque says

The Pajalache Acequia (Ditch) Constucted early in the 18th century by the Pajalache Indians as a part of their irrigation system, began here in La Villita and ended at Mission Concepcion. The padres and the Indians travelled in canoes between these places, as the acequia was wide and deep. Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Antonio River Walk — steps away
  A Depression-era park one level below downtown, built because San Antonio refused to pave its river after the 1921 flood, and designed by an architect the project later fired.
• La Villita Historic Arts Village — steps away
  The little village across the river from the presidio, where Cos surrendered San Antonio in 1835, rebuilt by Depression-era youth crews as a working crafts village.
• The Alamo — 0.3 mi
  Mission San Antonio de Valero before it was a fort: a church its builders never finished, a thirteen-day siege in 1836, and the Army gable of 1850-52 that became its emblem.
• San Fernando Cathedral — 0.3 mi
  The Canary Islanders' parish church on Main Plaza, where Bowie married and Santa Anna raised a red flag, rebuilt in Gothic Revival around the walls of the 1750s church.

More markers nearby

• Site of the Home of Dr. Ferdinand Ludwig Herff — steps away
• St. Philip's College (original site) — steps away
• Bowen's Island — steps away
• Site of the Old Adobe — steps away