San Jose Mission National Historic Site
6519 San Jose Dr., San Antonio, TXSan Jose Mission was founded on February 23, 1720, by Venerable Antonio Margil, O. F. M., and the Governor of Texas, Marquis de San Miguel de Aguayo, who gave orders to Captain Juan Valdez of the Presidio of San Antonio de Bexar to establish the new mission.
Fr. Margil placed in charge of the mission Fr. Agustin Patron and Fr. Miguel Nunez de Haro, and the latter was missionary at San Jose for 32 years, until his death in 1752.
In 1740 Fr. Nunez moved San Jose Mission to its present location -the third site occupied. It developed into one of the most successful missions and became known as the "Queen of the Missions."
The new church was started in 1768 and finished about 1782. The original sacristy with its "Rose Window" still stands today, but a part of the north wall collapsed in 1868, and in 1874 the dome and roof caved in.
In 1824 the mission was completely secularized and ceased to be a mission. The last missionary at San Jose was Fr. Jose Antonio Diaz de Leon. He was the last missionary in all of Texas, having been shot to death near Nacogdoches in 1834.
After 1840 the church of San Jose was used occasionally for religious purposes.
From 1859 to 1868 Mission San Jose was in the care of the Benedictine Fathers from Pennsylvania. It was then abandoned again until 1872, when the Holy Cross Fathers from Notre Dame, Indiana, took charge until 1888.
Sometime between 1880 and 1890 the richly carved wooden doors dis-appeared. The statues in the church had been ruined by soldiers during the revolutionary wars.
The Redemptorist Fathers were in charge of San Jose Mission from 1923 until 1931, when the Franciscan Fathers (St. Louis Province) returned after an absence of more than one hundred years.
In 1928 the tower collapsed.
In 1936 the Mission was restored and was declared a National Historical Site in 1941.
Bibliography
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1966.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.