El Camino Real de los Tejas: A Day from San Antonio to Goliad

This National Park Service itinerary follows El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail south from San Antonio to Goliad, mixing history with time outdoors. It makes a very full day, so shorten or skip stops to suit, check each site's opening hours, and ask whether programs are running. The trail is also in the free National Park Service app: search for "El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail".

What a mission was

At first a mission was simply people on a mission: a priest, an interpreter and sometimes a soldier or two, working directly among groups of American Indians and carrying a portable altar for Mass. That began decades before the stone mission churches still standing today were built. A mission also needed official approval and funding from the Spanish king and his council, and it was aimed at a particular place. For Spain, missions served three ends: conversion, pacification, and a claim to the land and its resources.

These stops show pieces of that early missionary work and settlement: what it took to support a mission, where the old road ran and why, and how tangled the relations were between native peoples, Spanish settlers, clergy and soldiers. They are tied together by Spain's aim to claim, convert and settle, using the land's resources and those of the American Indian groups already living there. One thread to follow: the loom at Mission Espada links it to Rancho de las Cabras, later in the day.

The stops

1. Mission Espada, San Antonio

Mission Espada was the first mission in Texas, founded in 1690 as San Francisco de los Tejas near present-day Weches, Texas. In 1731 it moved to the San Antonio River and was renamed Mission San Francisco de la Espada. Visitors can explore the grounds, the church and the museum.

The Hike & Bike Trail along the San Antonio River links all five of San Antonio's missions: the Alamo, Mission Concepción, Mission San José, Mission San Juan and Mission Espada.

2. Floresville El Camino Trail

This trail runs on the old right-of-way of the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad and roughly follows the 19th-century route of El Camino Real between San Antonio and Goliad.

3. Rancho de las Cabras, Floresville

A protected prairie holding the archaeological ruins of one of the first ranches in Texas — the Spanish colonial ranch of Mission Espada, the southernmost of the San Antonio missions. It can be visited only on a guided tour; San Antonio Missions National Historical Park takes bookings.

4. Goliad State Park and Mission Espíritu Santo State Historic Site

The mission shows many classic features of Spanish architecture and matters to the history of ranching in Texas and of the San Antonio River valley. The site is run by Texas Parks and Wildlife.

5. Presidio La Bahía, Goliad

La Bahía was a fort, not a mission. The chapel inside its quadrangle served the soldiers and the Spanish settlers of the town of La Bahía around it. Our Lady of Loreto Chapel, dating to the 1790s, is the compound's oldest building and has been in continuous use since the 1700s. Exhibits, programs and reenactments bring the fort's life back.

Sources

• National Park Service, El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail, "El Camino Real de los Tejas: San Antonio to Goliad Itinerary." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/san-antonio-to-goliad-itinerary.htm
• The stops come from the itinerary's own place entries, which the page loads by script: Mission Espada, Floresville El Camino Trail, Rancho de las Cabras, Goliad State Park and Mission Espíritu Santo, Presidio La Bahía.
• Further reading from the itinerary: ranching, from mission to rancho; San Antonio Missions guided programs; El Camino Real de los Tejas.
• Photo: National Park Service.
• Rewritten in hubnx's own words.