Mission Espíritu Santo: Texas's First Cattle Ranch

Nuestra Senora del Espiritu Santo de Zuniga, the mission whose ruins anchor Goliad State Park, was founded in seventeen twenty-two and moved twice before the Franciscans settled it here on the San Antonio River in seventeen forty-nine. Its legacy was practical as much as spiritual. This mission became the first large cattle ranch in Texas, running herds that supplied Spanish colonial settlements as far away as Louisiana.

Cattle culture in Texas, in other words, did not begin with Anglo ranchers. It began here, with indigenous mission residents managing Spanish livestock under Franciscan supervision. The mission operated until eighteen thirty, when political turmoil following Mexican independence finally closed its doors after more than a century of operation.