Presidio del Norte
Presidio vicinity, Presidio County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Proximate site of Presidio del Norte de la Junta established by Captain Alonzo Rubin de Celis in 1759-1760. Name of post retained in part by the present town and county. In this vicinity the missions of San Antonio de los Puliques, San Francisco de Los Julimes, Santa Maria la Redonda, San Pedro Alcantara, El Apostol Santiago, San Cristobal. Were first established in 1683-1684 by Don Juan Dominguez de Mendoza and Padre Fray Nicolas Lopez O. F. M. Maintained by Franciscan missionaries for the Christianizing and the civilizing of the Apache, Natages, Faraones, Puliques, Julimes, Jumanos, Zumas and other Indian tribes. Administered and controlled in 1746 by the custodia of New Mexico, 1836-1936.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This stretch of the Rio Grande at the junction of rivers was a center of Spanish colonial activity for generations. Franciscan missionaries, beginning with an expedition under Juan Domínguez de Mendoza and Padre Nicolás López in the 1680s, founded a cluster of missions here to draw the region's Indigenous peoples into the Spanish colonial and Christian orbit. A presidio, the Presidio del Norte, was established nearby around 1759–60, and its name endures today in the present town and county.
Why it matters
Sites like this mark the deep reach of Spain's mission-and-presidio frontier into what is now Texas, and the long Indigenous presence the colonial project sought to reshape.
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Related people
- · Juan Domínguez de Mendoza
- · Nicolás López
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Mission del Apostol Santiago
Presidio vicinity, TX
In 1683–1684, Father Fray Nicolas Lopez and Juan Dominguez de Mendoza established this as one of nine Spanish missions across the Big Bend country. Franciscan missionaries maintained it to convert and settle the Jumano, Julimes, and other Native peoples of the region. It stood at the far frontier of Spanish colonial ambition in what is now West Texas.
Native Peoples of La Junta de los Rios
Presidio, TX
Where the Rio Conchos meets the Rio Grande lies La Junta, the finest farmland for hundreds of miles and a natural trading hub that Native peoples occupied for thousands of years. When Cabeza de Vaca passed through in 1536 he met the agricultural Patarabueye and the nomadic, trading Jumanos, who lived in jacal homes and pit-houses. Spanish missions, settlement, and enslavement over the following centuries steadily eroded the region's Indigenous character, though descendants remained.
Mission San Francisco de los Julimes
Presidio vicinity, TX
In 1683–1684, Franciscan father Nicolas Lopez and Juan Dominguez de Mendoza established a string of missions in the Big Bend country, of which San Francisco de los Julimes was one. The mission aimed to convert and settle the Jumano, Julimes, and other Native peoples of the Rio Grande region under Spanish colonial rule. It reflects the northern edge of Spain's missionary frontier in what is now far West Texas.
Here Milton Faver
Shafter, TX
In the 1850s Milton Faver established the first Anglo-American-owned ranch in the Big Bend country, an isolated empire of springs at Cibolo, Cienega, and La Morita. To hold this ground against Apache raids, he built three fortress-like quadrangular adobe compounds, ranching in a borderland far beyond the reach of law or army.