Archaeological and Historical Investigations for the Mission Road

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Archaeological and Historical Investigations for the Mission Road Realignment Project, San Antonio, Texas

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ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL INVESTIGATIONS FOR THE MISSION ROAD REALIGNMENT PROJECT,

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

Joseph H Labadie

With Contributions by

Anne A Fox, David D Turner, and

I Waynne Cox

Center for Archaeological Research The University of Texas at San Antonio Archaeological Survey Report, No 173

1989

ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL INVESTIGATIONS FOR THE MISSION ROAD REALIGNMENT PROJECT,

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

Joseph H Labadie

With Contributions by

AnneA Fox, David D Turner, and

A list of publications offered by the Center for Archaeological Research can be obtained by sending $1.00 to the Center for Archaeological Research, The University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas 78285-0658

ABSTRACT

The Mission Road Realignment Project proposes to relocate the current position of Mission Road, which transects the original Mission Concepcion quadrangle, farther west and in the vicinity of the road's 18th-century location Archaeological testing conducted by the Center for Archaeological Research sought

to determine if significant cultural resources would be adversely impacted by the road relocation project Intensive testing established that no significant remains were located within or adjacent to the proposed right-of-way

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT i

LIST OF FIGURES iii

LIST OF TABLES iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv

INTRODUCTION 1

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (Anne A Fox) 2

Mission Concepcion 2

The Pajalache or Concepcion Acequia (I Waynne Cox) 3

RESEARCH DESIGN 3

SURVEY INVESTIGATIONS 4

Field Preparation 4

Results of Field Work 4

Machine-Excavated Units 4

TrenchA 4

Trench B 6

Trench C 7

Trench D 8

Hand-Excavated Units 8

Gene's Magic Box (David D Turner) 9

Background 9

Application at Mission Concepcion (Joseph H Labadie) 9

ARTIFACT ANALYSIS 10

Ceramics 10

Glass 10

Metal 13

SUMMARY 13

REFERENCES CITED 13

LIST OF FIGURES

1 Location of the Mission Road Realignment Project 1

2 Site Plan Map 5

3 Trench A, Profile of West Wall 6

4 Trench C, Profile of West Wall 7

5 Selected Artifacts Recovered at Mission Concepci6n 12

LIST OF TABLES 1 Grid Coordinates for Hand-Excavated Units 8

2 Provenience and Number of Artifacts Recovered During Hand Excavations 11

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Mission Road Realignment Project, Phase I, was successful due mainly to the many dedicated individuals who volunteered their time during the field work Project crew members included Jeff Huebner, Rochelle Leneave, Paul Maslyk, Kelly Scott, and David Turner Anne A Fox was the project director, and Joseph H Labadie was the field director Volunteer crew members were Burnley "Duke" Smith, Don McEwan, I

Waynne Cox, Lynn Highley, Kay Hindes, Bettye Woodyard, Ed Douglas, Barbara Fry, Juanita Lancaster, Santiago Escobedo, Michelle Shields, Frank Kirby, Michael Sanchez, Marshie Simpson, Dana Larrison, and Leif Dahl Illustration drafting for this report was done by David Hafernik and Kenneth Brown

The project would also like to thank the National Park Service Rangers for their help during the two weeks

of field work The project gratefully acknowledges the "surgeon's touch" that was employed by the backhoe operator from Wright's Backhoe Service

Official visitors during field work included Betty Bueche from Los Compadres de las Misiones, Jose Machado and Edna Rivas from Capital Projects Management, City of San Antonio, and an 8th-grade class from Page Middle School in San Antonio

iv

INTRODUCTION Mission Nuestra Senora de la Purisima

Concepcion de Acuna (41 EX 12) is designated a State

Archeological Landmark, a National Historic

Landmark, and is listed on the National Register of

Historic Places (Scurlock and Fox 1977:11) In 1978,

the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park

was established by the National Park Service (NPS),

and Mission Concepcion was then placed within the

NPS jurisdiction

The investigations were conducted by the Center

for Archaeological Research (CAR), The University

of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), under contract with

the National Park Service The project was initiated in

1985 (John W Rinehart, letter dated September 20,

1985), but was put on hold The project was reinitiated

in 1987 (John W Rinehart, letter dated January 26,

1987) and was carried out during February 2-12, 1987

Thomas R Hester (director of the CAR-UTSA)

served as the principal investigator for the project

.,

"

U S.90

MISSION CONCEPCION

The Mission Road Realignment Project (Fig 1), as proposed in plans submitted by the NPS (Southwest Region), was designed to relocate Mission Road from its current position and all underground utilities to the west The existing Mission Road transects the western portion of the old quadrangle of Mission Concepcion The new right -of-way will roughly follow the original location of Mission Road that was abandoned in the late 19th century

During the late 1950s or early 196Os, much of the current project area had been repeatedly scraped with

a bulldozer by one of the Fathers from St Joseph's

Orphanage The bulldozer filled in portions of the

original rock quarry, at least one acequia, and

essentially removed all surface remnants of walls and

other archaeological features west of Mission Road

These activities had made it very difficult for previous

archaeological testing (Scurlock and Fox 1977) to

locate and identify the exact location of the west wall

of the original mission quadrangle

Various historical documents (see Historical

Background section) suggested that at least one, and

possibly as many as three, acequias and/or laterals had

been filled by bulldozing Because of the surface

scraping, it was anticipated that very little (if any)

original ground surface existed, and any historical

features to be found would be intrusive features, such

as an ace quia

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

(Anne A Fox)

MISSION CONCEPCION

The following summary has been compiled from a

number of sources, concentrating primarily on events

that pertain to the area in question For a more

complete history of the mission, we recommend Father

Marion Habig's (1968) book, TIle Alamo Chain of

Mission Nuestra Senora de la Purfsima

Concepci6n de Acuna was founded in the late 17th

century in the western part of what is now

Nacogdoches County in east Texas When the

Presidio de Nuestra Senora de los Dolores de los Tejas

was abandoned in 1729, Mission Concepci6n was

moved to the Colorado River, then in 1731 was moved

again to the San Antonio River south of the settlement

of San Antonio de Bexar (Habig 1968:123-124) The

site chosen had previously been occupied, probably by

Mission San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo By this

time, Mission SanJ ose had moved downstream (Habig

1968:86), but the mission acequia was probably still in

operation

After the site was chosen, temporary buildings

were constructed, and the work of the mission began

By 1745, a stone wall had been constructed to surround

the mission compound, and a new stone church was

under construction (Habig 1968:128-129) Stone for

these improvements was taken from a quarry outside

the southwest corner of the mission compound (Ivey

and Thurber 1984:3-56-357) The mission fields were

irrigated by a branch of the main ace quia that ran

through the compound (Habig 1968:133)

The mission was partially secularized in 1794, at

which time part of the mission property was divided

By 1820, only the church and COil vento were still standing, surrounded by "heaps of rubbish" (Hatcher 1919:59)

The Republic of Texas in 1841 confirmed title of the mission churches and some of the surrounding land

to the Catholic church (Habig 1968:148) However, it

was not until 1855 that the Society of Mary occupied the mission, restored the church, and operated a farm

to supply their newly opened school in San Antonio (Schmitz 1931:41-44, 47) In 1859, the Society of Mary actually assumed ownership of the mission and the

surrounding land (ibid.:45-46) The brothers

continued to live there for 10 years, after which the mission was leased to a succession of local citizens until, in 1911, the Society of Mary relinquished title to the diocese (Schmitz 1931:47)

Mission Road was rerouted in 1890 to cut through the center of what had once been the compound

been anyone alive that remembered the original location of the surrounding walls

In 1912, St John's Orphanage for boys on the grounds of the Santa Rosa Infirmary was destroyed by fIre The following year, it was replaced by st Peter's Orphanage on the land to the west of Mission Concepci6n When a new wing for girls was added in

1929, the name was changed to St Peter's-St Joseph's Home (Wangler 1974:44)

The Concepci6n acequia was used intermittently into the early years of the 20th century It appears on many 19th-century maps and deed plats Sometime in the 1920s or 1930s it was filled in, and its location, in fact even its presence, was gradually forgotten A religious grotto was constructed in the old quarry, various playing fields were constructed for the orphanage, and the area was graded until all evidence

of the mission wall ruins and the ace quia was completely obliterated (Richard Garay, personal communication)

The church at Mission Concepcion has continued

in use to the present as a parish church The site has

gradually become a popular tourist attraction as one

of the four San Antonio missions In 1978, the San

Antonio Missions National Historical Park was

established (Cisneros 1980), administered by the

National Park Service With the moving of the Mission

Road outside the original wall lines, the integrity of the

mission boundaries will at last be restored

THE PAJALACHE OR CONCEPCION

ACEQUIA (1 Waynne Cox)

The exact date of construction of the Concepcion

acequia has never been reliably established It is

claimed by some to be the oldest of the venerable

irrigation systems to service the city (Corner 1890:43;

Arneson 1921:123) A construction date of 1729 is

based on the establishment of Mission Nuestra Seiiora

de la Purisima Concepcion de Acuiia at its present

location (Habig 1968:123) The initial establishment

ofthe acequia may have been even earlier if its purpose

was to provide irrigation for the fIrst site of Mission

San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo, established one

league south of the Villa de Bejar in March 1720

(Heusinger 1951:3) Others consider the acequia for

San Antonio de Valero ( the Alamo) to be the oldest

(Holmes 1962:7; Burkholder 1976:8; Buck 1980:5) By

1724, the Alamo acequia had reached a point within

one league of the mission (Barker 1929:36-38) The

fact that the Alamo ditch crossed the Concepci6n ditch

in a "canoa," or hollowed log, at the intersection of Mill

and Garden Streets (now near the juncture of South

Alamo and South St Mary's Streets), would seem to

indicate that the Concepci6n ditch predated the

Alamo acequia south of the mission (Corner 1890:43;

Burkholder 1976:9) The "canoa" was later replaced

by a "substantial arched stone aqueduct, which exists

now, only the arches have remained buried since the

disuse of the Pajalache" (Corner 1890:43) In fact, the

fIrst acequia was initiated from San Pedro Springs

when the villa and presidio were established by

Governor Alarcon in 1718 (Celiz 1935:86), but the

exact location of this early effort has not been

established

The Concepcion acequia began at the dam built

across the river a short distance above the town ford at

the present crossing of Pres a Street From the dam a

deep cut, some 20 feet deep, followed the line of

Garden Street (now South St Mary's Street) to Grove

Avenue, where it veered toward the west and ran just

east of Mission Concepcion (Corner 1890:43; Sail

Antonio Express July 29, 1893; Schuhart n.d.) It then

followed to the east of Mission Road until its return to

the San Antonio River south of Riverside Drive

3

This was, of course, the primary channel of the acequia; throughout its coarse lesser ditches, or laterals, the waters provided both irrigation and drinking water to property owners on both sides These irrigation ditches served as the municipality's primary source of water for its fIrst century and a half Even after the establishment of the Municipal Water Works in 1878, several of the acequias continued to provide areas of the city with water (Sibley 1973:131) One of the acequias, the Espada, remains in use at the present time

The Concepcion acequia became the fIrst of the major irrigation systems to be abandoned In 1869, a number of citizens petitioned for the immediate removal of the dam because it created "too great an obstruction to the river current and a nuisance to the city during flood times" (Corner 1890:43) Their petition was upheld by the Texas Supreme Court, and

a proposal for its removal was placed before the city council and approved (City Council Minutes Volume

D March 23, 1870) The following month a recommendation for the "speedy filling up of the Concepcion ditch" was presented and approved (City Council Minutes Volume D April 11, 1870) In order not to deprive the downstream users of all water, a portion of the Alamo acequia was diverted, near the old aqueduct at Alamo and Martines Streets, into a smaller channel to the east of Presa Street to Labor Street There it crossed to the west of Presa Street and continued to a point north of Grove Avenue, where it turned westward to join the old Concepcion ditch (Corner 1890:43; Schuhart n.d.) This new routing continued to service the area with water until the Alamo acequia was abandoned sometime after 1893 (Everett 1975:13) However, the acequia probably remained an open ditch for several years after the turn

of the century, since there would have been no reason

to expend the time or expense to fill it in The date of the fmal obliteration of the ditch is currently unknown

RESEARCH DESIGN Testing within and adjacent to the proposed right-of-way of Mission Road sought to address fIve specific research questions that had been raised from previous resource management projects at Mission Concepcion These questions were:

1 Did the somewhat linear alignment of trees along the northern NPS property line coincide with the location of an acequia?

2 Scurlock and Fox (1972) noted a gullylike feature, possibly an acequia, in their test units 42 and

43 Could this feature extend eastward to within the proposed right-of-way? Was it an acequia?