Mission Espiritu Santo, Market Days & Some Texas History

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Today, there were two different tours of the Mission Espiritu Santo on the grounds of Goliad State Park.

The first was a nature tour conducted by a park ranger and included a history of all the plants around the mission and how they were used.

In the afternoon, there was a history tour that went in depth of how the mission was used by the Spaniards and Indians from 1722 until 1830.  It was run as a large cattle ranch for many years.

Some of the places on the tour included the chapel,

Most of the mission was rebuilt by the CCC in the 1930's. This is the only original wall left from the mission.

There was a demonstration in one of the long building of dying and weaving wool.

It was an interesting and informative tour.

We then went to the town square for Market Days.

It was the place to be, it looked like the entire town of Goliad was there. We spent some time there looking, but didn't find anything we could not live without.

It was time to continue our Texas history tour. We drove out about 10 miles to the location of the Battle of Coleta Creek.  This was the place James Fannin fought the Mexican troops as his force had left La Bahia and were attempting to retreat back to Sam Houston's troops.  Fannin's troops were in a large prairie field when the Mexican army caught up to them.  Fannin had his men form a square to battle the Mexican troops.  (Picture a wagon train circle). This worked for a while, but the next morning the Texans knew they were unable to be victorious.  Fannin negotiated their surrender and the troops were moved to the Presidio La Bahia. http://www.presidiolabahia.org/coleto.htm

So, it was a busy day with some sightseeing and a little bit of history.