Founded July 9, 1716, by Franciscan Father Antonio Margil de Jesus, this mission was established to convert and settle the Nacogdoche Caddo Indians and, strategically, to assert Spanish presence against French encroachment from nearby Louisiana. In its brief working life, resident missionaries such as Fray Jose Rodriguez conducted daily religious instruction and sacramental life for the surrounding Nacogdoche community, while the mission compound also functioned as a small frontier outpost tied to Spain's chain of East Texas missions along the Camino Real. French incursions forced temporary abandonment in 1719; the Marquis de Aguayo restored the mission in 1721, but it operated only intermittently before being permanently abandoned in 1773, after Spain acquired Louisiana from France and no longer needed an East Texas buffer. No structures survive: the mission's deserted buildings were repurposed as the physical nucleus around which Antonio Gil y Barbo organized the civilian settlement of Nacogdoches in 1779, meaning the mission's everyday use effectively transferred into the town that grew from its footprint. Today the site's function is purely commemorative: a 1936 Texas Centennial marker, erected at the intersection of North and Mueller Streets in downtown Nacogdoches, identifies the location, which is now occupied by ordinary modern commercial development. The marker serves as the site's sole ongoing interpretive presence, preserving public memory of the mission for heritage tourists and local historians rather than any physical remains.