Goliad Mission and Fortress

This is the Mission Espiritu Santo at Goliad State Park.  A mission always consisted of a church, to convert the locals, a school and workshop to teach the converts European ways, an agricultural operation (vegetables, grains, cattle, etc.) to feed the missionaries and the converts, and always a fortress, to protect the missionaries and their converts from the local tribes that did not want them there.

This is the church.  Not exactly as it was in the 1700s, but restored to as it was in the 1800 once it had the white finish applied.

It had these huge front doors through which the priests and the converts only, were allowed to enter.  If you still thinking about it and had not converted there were two side doors that you had to use. 

This is one of the canons that the Spanish supplied to the missionaries to protect their fortress. 

This is one of the massive decorative doors for the main entrance to the church.  I include this picture for our cousin Wayne, who  has taken many pictures of many old doors in his travels.










 

The church  is a huge empty hall, as of course pews are a very recent addition in the overall history of churches.  You can see the very dominant pulpit for the priest to preach from.  And you can see the sun coming in through one of those side doors I mentioned. 

This is the tiny confessional.  I guess people didn't sin as much back then.  Before they felt it nessecary to add "Double Sided , No Waiting" confessionals. 

These are the stairs to the belfry. 

There is this strange carving over one of those side doors for the entry of the un-converted. 

This is the restored mission school and workshop.  This is what the exterior of the original church would
have looked like before the 1800 white facade was added. 

In this picture you can see the outline of the original smaller church that was built on the sight.  When the larger church on the right was built, the old church was turned into priests quarters and a granary. 

In the school/workshop there was an administrators office.  He would have been responsible for tracking the agricultural operation, as well as that of the mission itself.

In this picture you get a true picture of just how massive and thick all the walls in the mission are.

Everywhere you look you can see the outline of the original buildings and fortress walls.  There was a convent, a forge, gardens compounds and Indians and converts quarters all along the inside of the walls and of course the walls at that time were all about 10 feet high. The entire fortress enclosed about 800 X 800 ft.  with Bastions on each corner.







This is the San Antonio River.  The same river as the Alamo.  It's just further down river.  If you want to see authentic Texas history this is much better than the Alamo.  And it's not full of people hawking tourist crap.  We didn't take the time to visit the Presidio, which I intend to go back and see. 

So now we are "Home" in McAllen, and getting settled in.  We met so many people yesterday we had to start making list of names, our memories not being what they used to be.  Now we are making lists of things we have to get for out lot.  I will take pictures of our lot and nice big patio today.