We visited San Antonio last weekend, and I learned there are several missions in the city besides the Alamo. Unlike their famous sibling, these other missions are maintained by the National Park Service. The Alamo is owned by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas and is located across the street from a Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum and other crummy tourist pits. I shot the image above in the ruined residence hall of Mission San José on the southern end of the modern San Antonio. I shot the image below the same morning in front of the Alamo.
The mission church was reconstructed after its dome collapsed in the 1870s, but much of the structure dates from its founding in 1720.
That's the west facade of the mission church. It is still a working Catholic church where mass is celebrated regularly. Mission San José had the good fortune not to have been the site of a much mythologized battle, so it gets no Christmas tree. And the crummy wax museum geeks leave it alone.
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