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The first mission known to have been established in Texas east of the Pecos River. The buildings was probably constructed of logs, its lower story serving as a chapel and its upper story as a lookout post.
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The nearby Rio Grand flooded and changed course frequently. The adobe structures of the mission were severely damaged or swept away several times in the 1740s, 1829, and in the 1850s.
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Like Mission Corpus Christi de la Ysleta, the Senecú mission was founded by refugees fleeing from the Pueblo Revolt in New Mexico.
Piro Indians from the Senecú Pueblo settled several leagues downriver from Guadalupe del Paso and a little northwest of the Tigua Indians of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo. The mission was dedicated to San Antonio de Padua. -
Like other missions in the El Paso area, the Socorro mission was founded by refugees from the Pueblo Revolt of 1690, when hostile Indians drove the Spanish and allied tribes from the settlements, haciendas and missions in northern New Mexico.
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San Francisco de los Tejas was the first mission built in the Spanish state of Texas. Although there are earlier missions in what is now west Texas, when those missions were built the land was in Mexico. The original mission was near the present-day town of Weches, Texas. It was probably built of logs, since pine forests are plentiful in the area.
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It was founded by Fray Francisco Casañas de Jesus María on the banks of the Neches River. It was intended to convert the Hasinai (Caddo) Indians. However, the Caddo tribes resisted the Catholic teachings. One Hasinai medicine man even convinced his people that baptism waters could be fatal.
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Mission San Juan Bautista is not actually in Texas! However, it was the gateway for the development of the Texas mission system. It served as the launching point for missionary expeditions, and a source of supplies for the missions themselves. It was founded on St. John’s Day, June 24, 1699, on the Río de Sabinas, about 25 miles north of Lampazos, Nuevo León, Mexico. On January 1, 1700, it was relocated to Guerrero, Coahuila, Mexico.
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Mission San José de los Nazonis was founded in 1716 by the Domingo Ramón expedition, among the Nasoni Indians.
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Mission Concepción was originally established in East Texas in 1716 as Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de los Hainais. It was originally meant to be a base for converting the Hasinai. In 1835 Mission Concepción was the site of the Battle of Concepción, in which Texas revolutionaries under James Bowie defeated Mexican troops; some of the buildings were apparently damaged during the fight.
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Its location in east Texas was authorized by the Spanish government to serve as a buffer against the threat of French incursion into Spanish territory from Louisiana. It closed temporarily in 1719, because of threats from French Louisiana, but reopened in 1721. In 1779 a group of settlers moved to the area to settle in the empty mission buildings. This began the town of Nacogdoches, Texas.
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Mission Dolores was established in 1717. It was abandoned in 1719 with the advent of hostilities between Spain and France.The mission was reestablished in August 1722, by Father Antonio Margil de Jesús, who moved it east of the previous site, in order to be near a stream and a large tract of level land that could be used for farming.
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The early mission buildings were built of sod and wood. The first stone structure was built in 1727, and the current stone structure was built in 1744. The mission remained active until 1793, when mission activities in east Texas were ended.In 1805, the army built the first European hospital in Texas at the fort. During the Mexican Revolution, the Spanish and the Mexicans fought for control of The Alamo.
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The mission was founded in 1720, because the nearby Mission San Antonio de Valero had become overcrowded. Mission San José y San Miguel de Aguayo was named for Saint Joseph and the Marqués de San Miguel de Aguayo, the governor of the Province of Coahuila and Texas at the time. It is the largest of the Texas missions, and due to its size and beauty, it is called the Queen of the Missions.
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The mission and a presidio were established in 1722 on Matagorda Bay near La Salle’s Fort Saint Louis on Garcitas Creek, to secure the Texas coastline from the French and to convert the local Cocos, Copanes, and Cujanes Indians. The presidio and the mission came to be called La Bahia.The mission developed into the first large-scale cattle ranch in Texas, with 40,000 cattle at the height of production in about 1778!
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Mission San Francisco Xavier de Nájera was a short lived sub-mission of Mission San Antonio, meant to be the home to a group of about 50 families from the Sani and Yerbipiames Indian tribes. The families did not stay long, and due to budget limitations, the mission was closed in 1726.
