The southernmost of the San Antonio missions, San Francisco de la Espada was reestablished at its current site in 1731 and developed into a self-sustaining community for Coahuiltecan groups including the Pacao, Borrado, and Mariquita peoples. Under Franciscan instruction, residents learned trades that shaped daily life within the compound: weaving cotton and wool cloth, blacksmithing, masonry, and carpentry, with permanent stone structures gradually replacing earlier temporary buildings. Irrigated fields watered by the mission's acequia system supported crops of corn, cotton, beans, melons, and squash, while livestock, cattle, sheep, goats, horses, and oxen, was raised some thirty miles south at the mission's Rancho de las Cabras, tended by indigenous vaqueros. Apache raids periodically threatened these operations, prompting defensive walls and fortified structures. Disease outbreaks took a heavy toll on the mission's population over its working life, and the community eventually declined alongside the broader mission system's secularization. Notably, the acequia irrigation network the mission relied on has never gone fully out of use. Today Mission Espada remains an active Roman Catholic parish, jointly stewarded by the Archdiocese of San Antonio and the National Park Service as part of San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. Its small chapel continues to hold services and community gatherings, and the site draws visitors and school groups for tours and educational programs exploring its mission-era architecture and continuously operating irrigation heritage.