by It was a first and I almost missed it!
I almost didn’t go to see the San Antonio Mission Trail because of the sweltering heat. But I figured it would be a long time, if ever, until I would be back in San Antonio so I drove south of downtown to see the Missions.
A bit of background: there are 5 missions in this group of churches. Including the Alamo, they have been designated as a National Historic Park overseen by the U.S. National Park Service. They have also been designated as a World Heritage site by the United Nations. They are also parish churches where people in the neighborhood worship weekly.
Restored or just maintained?
Unlike the historic Spanish missions in California, Arizona and even El Paso the National Park Service seems disinclined to attempt to restore them to their original condition. Maintenance – Yes. Restoration – Not much. (Later, I realized that the federal budget for National Parks was also a factor in the condition of these 5 churches.)
I started with Mission Concepcion, just south of downtown. It was not particularly interesting except that it was where I began to realize the reality of the maintenance v. restoration issue.
Built in the 1750s, the building was a crumbling ruin by the early 20th Century. Restored by the city of San Antonio in the 1920s and then the National Park Service, it is now sturdy but stained as would be expected after more than two centuries of weathering. Originally, the exterior and interior were elaborately painted, similar to the Mission San Jose, my next stop on the Mission Trail. The paint has worn away except for a few places inside the buildings.
Defensible walls tell a story about the natives
So I traveled about 3 miles south to the Mission San José y San Miguel de Aguayo which the Spanish King called the “King of His Missions”. It struck me more as a sizeable fortress with a Moorish design Catholic church near the back wall. None of the other missions I have visited, except the Alamo, have been enclosed with massive walls like this one. And I suspect that the walls are a reflection of the poor and sometimes violent relations between the natives, including the Apaches, and the Spanish priests, government officials and military.
So here is what it is like to enter what I think of as “Fortress San Jose”. Click on the photo to view all three images in this slide show.
The wall is not a single curtain wall of mortared stones. There is a second wall about 10 feet inside and a wide defensible area at the top. In the space between these 2 walls are rooms–well over a hundred rooms running completely around the fort. You can see the doors in the image below. On one map these rooms are noted as “Indian homes”. They may also have been storage for the military and religious residents of the Mission.
How a restored San Jose Mission would look
It’s a long walk to the actual mission church, but as I grew closer I realized that the architecture, unlike any other missions I’ve visited, is Moorish–inspired by the great buildings built by Muslims of Southern Spain. And as this photo discloses, it was originally plastered and painted in the style of those buildings.
This photo is of a 19th Century painting of the church, which was based on an earlier work–before all the colors were worn away. Advocates of full restoration would urge that the Park Service restore Mission San Jose to this image. Clearly, that would be a very costly effort, so the Park Service now maintains the walls and buildings except for the interior of the church which is used for worship by locals regularly.
But after reading some information online, apparently some restoration is going on in the interior. Gradual steps to bring it back to what it once was. It would be glorious if at least one of these 5 historic Missions was fully restored!
Here is what the interior looks like today. (Sorry the photo is blurred.)
And, unlike any other Spanish mission I’ve visited, there was a recording of a Gregorian chant playing softly. I think it was to emphasize that this was and is a religious building. And to think I might have missed all this because of the heat!
I have to confess, however, that I did not go to the other two missions further south. It was far too hot and humid. I had already visited The Alamo, so I was off to Tucson next, where it is also very hot, but dry.
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