Corpus Christi de la Ysleta
Ysleta, El Paso County, Texas
Marker Inscription
First mission and pueblo in Texas. Established by Don Antonio de Otermin and Fray Francisco Ayeta O.F.M. in 1682. Maintained by Franciscan missionaries for the civilizing and Christianizing of the Tigua Indians, Pueblo revolt refugees. 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Established in 1682, Corpus Christi de la Ysleta is remembered as the first mission and pueblo in Texas, founded by Spanish governor Antonio de Otermín and Franciscan Fray Francisco Ayeta. It was built for the Tigua people—Pueblo refugees who had fled south during the great Pueblo Revolt of 1680—and maintained by Franciscan missionaries in the decades that followed.
Why it matters
Ysleta marks the deep Spanish and Indigenous origins of Texas, born from the upheaval of the Pueblo Revolt and home to a Tigua community that endures to this day.
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Related people
- · Antonio de Otermín
- · Francisco Ayeta
Related events
- · Pueblo Revolt of 1680
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Oldest Mission in Texas
Ysleta, TX
This mission was first founded in 1613 at Isleta Pueblo in New Mexico and dedicated as San Antonio de Isleta. During the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, Tigua Indians carried their patron saint south alongside fleeing Spaniards and re-established the mission near El Paso in 1682. Renamed several times over the centuries, its present chapel still holds walls and bells from a 1744 building — and it continues to minister to the Tigua people.
Site of First Mission in Texas
Ysleta, TX
Founded around 1681 at Ysleta, this Spanish mission is among the oldest in what became the United States, established generations before the famous missions of California. It grew alongside the Tigua (Tiwa) people who helped the Franciscan padres build it and who have maintained their presence and traditions there for centuries. Rebuilt and restored over time, it remains an active church at the heart of Ysleta, often called Texas's oldest community.
Alderete-Candelaria House
El Paso, TX
Likely raised in the 1870s for Benigno Alderete—a Ysleta-born Texas Ranger, county commissioner, and mayor—this L-shaped adobe house was built with the help of the neighboring Tigua Indians, whose construction techniques are visible throughout. Later known as the Candelaria House through marriage, it served over the decades as a courthouse, gristmill, school, dance hall, movie house, and county office. Its very fabric blends Spanish, Indigenous, and American ways of building and living.
San Antonio de Senecu
Ysleta, TX
Near this El Paso–area site stood the mission and pueblo of San Antonio de Senecú, established in 1682 by Spanish governor Antonio de Otermín and the Franciscan Fray Francisco Ayeta. Founded in the wake of the Pueblo Revolt that drove the Spanish south, it gathered Piro and Tompiro Indian refugees under Franciscan direction. The mission was part of the chain of settlements that took hold along the Rio Grande.