JACKSON COUNTY, TEXAS—According to a statement released by Texas Tech University, a team of archaeologists from Texas Tech University and the Texas Historical Commission have discovered the site of Mission Nuestra Señora del Espíritu Santo on private land in southeastern Texas. The colony was founded in the 1680s by French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, who was soon killed by his own men. Christian missionaries from Spain then settled at the site but abandoned it in the 1720s. Team leader Tamra Walter of Texas Tech University said that the discovery not only completes the story of La Salle, but offers a glimpse of life at a Spanish mission between about 1721 and 1726. “There are missions that are about the same age, but the problem is they had been occupied for almost 100 years,” she said. “We have a snapshot of what it was like to live on the Spanish frontier of Texas at that very moment.” The team is planning a magnetic survey of the site to locate its boundaries and an excavation. For more on the archaeology of Texas, go to "Letter from Texas: Home on the Range."
