Mission San José (San Antonio Missions National Historical Park)

Mission San José was founded by Spanish colonists in 1720 as part of a chain of frontier missions intended to colonize and convert Indigenous peoples in the province of Texas. The site later passed through multiple national jurisdictions-Spanish, Mexican, the Republic of Texas, and then the United States-illustrating the shifting political borders of the region. The mission complex and its irrigation acequia system remain as physical evidence of those colonial borderland dynamics.