The Mission Trail

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Had breakfast with Nancy and then drove downtown.  We stopped in the King Williams District and walked around many of the historic homes on the River.  Beautiful.

  We also went through a small museum at a old historic mill, the Guenther House, that has a restaurant and shop.  We had our second breakfast at Tim’s Country Inn.  Wow homemade biscuits, eggs and such all for under 10 dollars.  What a find.  Thank you Trip Advisor.  We then started our day of visiting the San Antonio Historic missions.  Wow, they were amazing.  The Alamo is really the first mission but remembered more for the siege than for its mission history.  The next one south is Mission Concepcion which is one of the country’s oldest original stone churches.  

The Franciscan monks came to south Texas to claim the land for Spain and to convert the native cultures that were at the time hunter-gatherers. ( The Coahuiltecans) The missionaries taught the people to farm the land and slowly worked on conversion.  Many of the native people lived in the missions.  The Europeans brought disease and they came to the missions to help survive and also from raiding Lipan Apaches.  Coming to the missions however, caused irreversible change to their way of life.  Upon entering the mission, the Coahuiltecans were expected to give up their own religion, culture, and traditions – even their names.  They were expected to become Spanish.  Despite this, elements of their native lifeways blended with Spanish and Catholic cultures.  Today this blend comprises part of the rich cultural heritage of San Antonio. 

 They built the 5 churches that are part of the San Antonio Missions (4 are run by the National Park District) while the Alamo is Run by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.  It has been 250 years since the mission Indians laid the last stone for Mission Concepcion.  Religious services are still held there.  The next Mission is San Jose which was the most complete representation with the outer walls intact (restored).  At one point 350 Indians lived there.  It was called the “Queen of the Missions.”  We saw part of a restored grist mill and how water was diverted from the creek to run the mill. 

 There was also a significant aquaduct that was more obvious further down the mission road that was used to irrigate the land to grow the crops.  Also visited San Juan which the park service is working on restoring  so we were only able to walk around the grounds.  The last one is called Mission Espada.  There was a woman praying inside.  We felt so bad because she was crying.  It is way out in a rural area and an active parish with the priest having a beautiful garden.

Aquaduct

  We then went to the Witte museum and took advantage of free Tuesday afternoons.  It is a really cool museum.  They had a display on circus history in Texas, quite interesting as well as a Texas history cultural area with information on one of the largest ranches in South Texas.  Also a good science area for kids and ecology area that told about the flora and fauna of this part of Texas as well as area of the first nations who lived here.  Had dinner a Bill Miller’s BBQ which was essentially a BBQ fast food joint.  Quite good.  We then walked on the trail that runs along the creek starting at Lady Bird Johnson Park.  It is a very nice trail.  We would love to find out how to catch it closer to Nancy’s condo.