Founded in 1722 and relocated twice before settling adjacent to Presidio La Bahia at Goliad in 1749, Mission Espiritu Santo functioned as a working religious and agricultural community rather than a simple church. Franciscan friars and a handful of Spanish soldiers lived alongside Native residents drawn mainly from the Aranama, Piguique, Manos de Perro, Tamique, and at times Tawakoni and Tonkawa peoples, who sought mission protection from Apache and Comanche raiding as much as conversion. Day to day, the mission ran a substantial cattle-ranching operation that grew crops alongside herds recorded at over 15,000 head by 1788 and reportedly reaching as many as 40,000 at their peak, making it one of the largest ranching enterprises in Spanish Texas and a direct ancestor of the later Texas cattle industry; Indigenous residents worked as vaqueros, branding, herding, and breaking horses under mission management. Disease, desertion, and raiding steadily thinned the resident population through the later 1700s, and the mission was formally secularized by 1830, after which its buildings deteriorated for decades. Restoration began in 1931, with the Civilian Conservation Corps rebuilding the chapel and granary between 1935 and 1941. Today the mission is preserved within Goliad State Park and Historic Site, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and open to visitors with museum exhibits, guided interpretation, and surrounding park facilities for camping, hiking, and river recreation.