Mission Espada- San Antonio Missions National Historical Park

Mission San Francisco de la Espada is recognizable by its narrow facade topped with a distinctive, triple-pierced stone tower. Often called the hilt of a sword, this bell tower rises above a site that began in sixteen ninety as the first mission in Texas, located originally near present-day Weches. It moved to this bend in the San Antonio River in seventeen thirty-one as part of a Spanish effort to solidify territorial claims and convert local indigenous populations to Catholicism.