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Texas History Tour - Spanish influence - Mission San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo

 After a late lunch, we decided to visit the middle mission - San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo.  It was the largest mission and the one that is most well preserved, being designed a work area for the WPA in the 1930's.  They have done a wonderful job of recreating ruins and painting original colors.  There were also some architecture dig sites this summer.  Unfortunately, being a Sunday, we didn't get to meet any of the student workers.  We did however, get to visit with the park rangers, who had just recently returned to work and the park store was open as well.



Mission San Jose was founded in 1720 along the San Antonio River.  It came to be the largest mission on the area with roughly 300 Indians living on the grounds.  






"it's a giant turtle with a hole in the back" It's really an outdoor oven.


It's a very pretty mission setting.






We also saw several wells and cisterns and lots of arches, angles, and other geometric shapes. 












Love the curved stone stairs and all the colors.  It must have been a beautiful wall!


San Jose has a mill that was fed by the aqueduct.  We visited with one of the rangers at the mill and all the original equipment is still there.  They have water running over the mill parts at the bottom of the mill to keep the wood moisturized.  Amazing!!!










This demonstrated what they believe the mission would have looked like and what the inside of many of the buildings would have been like.  Lots of colors, arches, and beautiful architecture.












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