Oldest Mission in Texas
Ysleta, El Paso County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Originally founded in 1613 at Isleta Pueblo, in New Mexico, and dedicated in 1621 as San Antonio de Isleta. Removed to El Paso area, 1680 (during Pueblo Revolt), by Tigua Indians who brought along the patron saint as they accompanied fleeing Spaniards. Re-established here in 1682, it has been named successively: Sacramento de Los Tiguas de Ysleta; Corpus Christi de Los Tiguas de Ysleta (1691); San Antonio de Los Tiguas de Ysleta (1744); and Nuestra Senora Del Carmen (1874). Present chapel has walls and bells of 1744 building. Still ministers to the Tiguas. (1970)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
As one of the oldest continuously used mission churches in Texas, it embodies the collision and endurance of Spanish colonialism and Pueblo Indian life on the far southwestern frontier.
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Related events
- · Pueblo Revolt of 1680
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Corpus Christi de la Ysleta
Ysleta, TX
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.
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.