Protected Park
San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, TX
San Antonio Missions tell the stories of the people who came to the Spanish missions to live in the 1700s. Our acquisition of privately held land preserves key agricultural lands for a UNESCO World Heritage site facing encroachment by urban development.
Project Details:
Project Years: 2020 – 2021
Parcel Size: 44.58 acres
Project Cost: $453,800
Park Trust Role: Buy and hold
Funding Source: Treasure Forever Fund
Overview
In 2020, the National Park Service contacted us seeking help to acquire a 44.58-acre parcel of land for San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. Using our real estate expertise and close partnership with NPS, as well as funds from our Treasure Forever Revolving Fund we were able to meet the owner’s deadline for sale of the property. The undeveloped acreage is east of the San Antonio River, and its fields are within reach of Mission Espada and Mission San Juan. The property, which has now been transferred to the National Park Service with funds returning to the revolving fund to support future acquisitions.
Why This Place Matters
This acquisition protects a historic acequia and helps preserve the oldest water rights in Texas as well as the cultural landscape and historic agricultural lands that provided food to support life at historic missions from the Spanish Colonial era.
San Antonio Missions National Historical Park preserves and protects four of five Spanish Colonial Missions around the city. The oldest dates from the early 1700s; the fifth mission, not in the park, is the Alamo.
UNESCO named the park and Alamo a World Heritage Site. It qualified because the missions and grounds have an accurate cultural and historical landscape, “authentic” mission structures (i.e., they have enough original construction and use the same material for repairs as the missionaries did), and are formally protected by the NPS and other governmental bodies.
The property is part of the area around the missions cultivated and fed by the historic canals or acequias. The east edge of the property includes a section of the San Juan Acequia.
Significance of the Acquisition:
- • Permanently preserves, undeveloped, the historic farmlands cultivated by communities living at the colonial missions.
- • Expands property that can be used as a demonstration area replicating the historic crops cultivated during the Mission Colonial era.
- • Protects the historic cultural landscape views from the missions.
- • Expands the greenspace buffer for the San Antonio River and allows greater protection of the historic San Juan Acequia, a portion of which runs through the property.
“A tremendous thank you to the National Park Trust for helping us to increase the protection of San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. As the only UNESCO World Heritage Site in Texas and located within the seventh-largest city in the United States – it is so critical that we are able to preserve the dynamic, living landscape aspects of the site while simultaneously protecting the resources from the encroaching urban interface…THANK YOU!”
Christine Jacobs, Superintendent, San Antonio Missions National Historical Park
