Cenizo Journal Spring 2012 | Page 8

Photo by Danielle Gallo With its massive whitewashed adobe form, the presidio chapel at San Elizario anchors the community’s colonial square, in a classic example of Spanish colonial architecture. On The Missions Trail by Danielle Gallo F or the majority of resi- dents of the Big Bend, El Paso is a place to buy sta- ples, pick up friends and rela- tives at the airport and get a taste of urban life to contrast with the Big Bend’s rustic liv- ing. Though it is one of the old- est towns in the United States, with most of El Paso’s history tucked away among purely util- itarian structures it can be diffi- cult to find the gems of bygone eras. Just minutes to the east of the city is a string of just such historic gems, on the road known as the Missions Trail. Here, like time in the rings of an ancient tree, the history of El Paso can be traced to the earliest Spanish settlements of the 17th century. All three mis- sions along this trail are still pri- vately owned by the Catholic Diocese, and all three are still 8 active churches. The missions were founded in the 1600s by Spanish Catholic monks. The local Indian tribes, the Mansos and Sumas, both horticulturalist and hunter-gatherer societies, and the Tigua and Piro Indians, originally from north- ern New Mexico, built the mis- sions from sun-baked adobe under the direction of the Spanish priests. The Tigua and Piro had fled the Indian revolts of the 1680s in northern New Mexico, where the tribes had risen up against the Spanish colonists, and taken refuge with the Spanish at El Paso. The area at the time was part of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, or The Royal Road of the Interior, the road that con- nected Mexico City to Santa Fe within New Spain. It is the old- est – and was once the longest – contiguous road in North America. All three missions are situated within a few minutes’ drive of each other on what is now Socorro Road, not 10 minutes from Interstate 10. First to be built was Mission Ysleta, both the oldest continu- ously active church in Texas and the cornerstone of Ysleta, the oldest township in the state. Originally dedicated in 1660, the temporary plank church was replaced in 1682 by the first permanent mission. The Tigua tribe built the mission and named it Ysleta after the Isleta pueblo in northern New Mexico they had been forced to flee. The tribe still occupies the land today. The disastrous flooding of the Rio Grande in 1740 and 1829 severely dam- aged two iterations of the mis- sion, and the existing adobe structure was completed in Cenizo Second Quarter 2012 Photo by Danielle Gallo The mission at Ysleta, the oldest church in the oldest town in Texas, still celebrates Mass seven days a week. Built by the Tigua tribe in the 17th century, it is still the focal point of the tribe’s religious community.