Mission San Francisco de la Espada: Cultural Landscape Inventory, San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, National Park Service
Roberts JA and Johnson L. 2011. Mission San Francisco de la Espada: Cultural Landscape Inventory, San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, National Park Service. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 850151. NPS Intermountain Regional Office. Intermountain Regional Office/CLI Database
Mission San Francisco de la Espada (Mission Espada), a component landscape of the San Antonio Missions National Historic Park, is classified as a historic designed, vernacular, and ethnographic landscape. The mission is located approximately eight miles south of San Antonio, Texas on the west bank of the San Antonio River. It covers about 285 acres and is composed of several distinct zones, including the mission complex, the labores (farm fields), and the acequia system (irrigation ditches). The acequia system encompasses the Espada Dam, the irrigation ditches themselves, and the Espada Aqueduct. Mission Espada illustrates how a mission establishment functioned as a system of individual yet highly interdependent landscape components. The period of significance begins in 1731 with the establishment of the mission by Franciscan missionaries, and it continues until 1978 with the creation of the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. As the southernmost mission in the San Antonio River Valley, Mission Espada served as one of the religious outposts of the Spanish Empire’s northern frontier during the tenure of the Franciscans. Its main purpose was the acculturation and indoctrination of the indigenous people. Its significance is associated with areas of agriculture, architecture, archeology, community planning and development, education, ethnic heritage (Hispanic, Native American, and European), exploration and settlement, military, religion, and social history. During its height in the 1770s, the complex contained a church and convent, workshops and storage facilities, and residential quarters. Structures were joined to form a defensive wall and oriented toward an open central plaza, creating a public gathering space. These design characteristics are representative of nearly all Texan-style Franciscan missions and provide evidence for understanding mission life on the Texas frontier. As Spanish homesteaders moved into the area, Mission Espada was partially secularized in 1794, and fully secularized in 1824. After secularization, the mission experienced a period of material decline that extended into the 1880s. At that point, Franciscan Father Francis Bouchu took up residence in the mission and began a restoration effort that continued into the 1970s through the efforts of the WPA, various Catholic bishops, and the City of San Antonio. While the 20th century urbanization of the city of San Antonio and the channelization of the San Antonio River in the 1950s have altered its landscape, Mission Espada still maintains its ability to relate the story of its development and purpose, and therefore has maintained its historic integrity. Today, the National Park Service (NPS), Archdiocese of San Antonio, the Bexar Historical Commission, and the City of San Antonio jointly manage the landscape features within the inventory unit. Projects such as the Mission Parkway, Mission Trails, and Mission Reach Ecosystem Restoration and Recreation Project serve to enhance the landscape and strengthen its historic ties to San Antonio. In addition, preservation, maintenance, invasive species removal, and historic interpretation projects throughout the inventory unit are continuous.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Roberts, Julia; Johnson, Lauri
- Date of Issue
- 2011-03-15
- Publisher
- NPS Intermountain Regional Office
- Units
- IMR , SAAN
- Keywords
- 1884-1949: Battlefield Preservation, Acequia, Agriculture, Aqueduct, Archdiocese of San Antonio, Archeological Preservation, Archeology, Bexar County, Bexar Historical Commission, Colonial architecture, Community Planning and Development, cooperative agreement, Designed Landscape, Development of Transportation and Land Tenure Systems, Education, Espada Dam, Establishing Intercultural Relations, Ethnic Heritage, Ethnographic/Traditional Landscape, Exploration and Settlement, Farming Communities, Francis Bouchu, Hispanic, Historic Preservation Movement, Interpretive Landscape, Irrigation System, labores, Landscape architecture, Manufacturing Organizations, Mexican Revolution, Military, Mission Complex, Mission Espada, Missionary, Native American, Readaptation of Native Populations, Religion, San Antonio, San Antonio River, secularization, Social History, Spanish, Spanish-Colonial History, Subsistence Agriculture, Technology (Enginering and Invention), Texan Revolution, Texas, The 1930s: Era of Public Works, The New Deal, Vernacular Landscape, Water and Sewage, Works Progress Administration, WPA