Mission Dolores State Historic Site

Nothing of the mission is standing. The Texas Historical Commission says plainly that there are no historic above-ground remains of Mission Dolores, and what visitors find at 701 South Broadway is a museum with artifacts and a diorama of the old mission, a footbridge and path, and a covered pathway. The site is a National Register property and a State Antiquities Landmark, and El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail passes through it.

The mission was named for the Ais. The Handbook of Texas says they were related to the Caddos, that their early home was Ayish Bayou, and that they spoke a different language from the Caddos of the region. The Handbook says that, except for short periods, they refused to live at the mission; in 1744 an inspector found two priests and two soldiers and no Ais residents. The Commission dates the Spanish mission to 1721, while the Handbook gives January 1717 for the first founding and August 1722 for its re-establishment.

Archeologists confirmed the site in the 1970s and 1980s through field schools led by Stephen F. Austin State University, and the Commission says construction of Highway 147 had destroyed much of it. The City of San Augustine bought the site in the early 1990s, and the Commission took it over in 2016. It is open Tuesday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; adults pay $5.