San Antonio Missions National Historical Park

Four Spanish colonial missions strung along about eight miles of the San Antonio River make up this 475-acre district in south central San Antonio. From north to south they are Concepción, San José, San Juan Capistrano and Espada. Also included are the Espada and San Juan dams and acequias, the aqueduct carrying the Espada ditch over Piedras Creek, the mission fields, and prehistoric, colonial, Mexican and Anglo-American sites linked to the missions. In all, 86 structures and 21 archeological and historical sites record more than 260 years of history. Each mission followed a medieval European plan of enclosing wall, church, friary and Indian quarters. Much of the eighteenth-century character of the buildings remains, though painted decoration has mostly vanished and the compounds have changed. San José, reconstructed in the 1930s, best shows the original compound. Only the Espada acequia still carries water, and urban growth presses on the setting.