{"id":2407,"slug":"mission-espada-san-antonio-texas","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Espada is the moved — the 'first Texas' that's the '90 start, the 'fled east' that's the Weches's end. The 'water still' is the run — the '275 years' that's the aqueduct's flow, the 'arches carry' that's the creek's cross. The 'dam curved' is the built — the 'wrong way' that's the shape's bend, the 'goat milk' that's the mortar's mix.","The 'acequia dug' is the first — the 'before walls' that's the ditch's order, the 'gravity fed' that's the water's way. The '230 fled' is the emptied — the 'Apache feared' that's the '37 run, the 'smallpox' that's the return's cost. Espada is the complete — the 'most original' that's the system's mark, the 'still works' that's the water's proof.","The file keeps Espada: the moved mission, the running water, the wrong-way dam, and the complete acequia.","Mission Espada is the archive's Texas file — the water that still runs 275 years on."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Mission Espada is the archive's Texas file — where the aqueduct never stopped.","A ditch keeps its flow — the file's suggestion being that Espada's hold is the running: the '275 years' that's the aqueduct's age, the 'dam curved wrong' that's the engineering's mark, and the 'dug first' that's the water's priority."]}],"name":"Mission Espada","aliases":[],"type":"MISSION","type_label":"Mission","cats":["LOCAL_FOLKLORE","HAUNTED_PLACE","HISTORIC_SITE","MISSION"],"groups":["hauntings","legends"],"desc":"The 1731 mission with the still-running aqueduct.","full_desc":"A mission in San Antonio, Texas, Mission Espada is filed here for what the record attaches to it. The 1731 mission with the still-running aqueduct. It sits in the archive under missions, local folklore and haunted places. The dossier holds 1 reported claim, 1 legend and 1 documented fact, with the verified spine filed separately from the lore. The site is open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"San Antonio","county":null,"state":"Texas","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":29.462809,"lon":-98.524635,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"HISTORIC_SITE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Missions batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":1850,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported a presence in the church. Sacred ground in San Antonio, Texas keeps its own kind of haunting — quieter, and harder to dismiss. Local lore carries the account; no documentation has ever caught up with it. Sources including 'Mission Espada' keep the claim in circulation. The apparition is the file's anchor — every other report orbits it.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Mission Espada","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Espada","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"Founded 1731; its aqueduct still functions. The site's documented religious history is the record the rest of the file stands on. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. Sources including 'Mission Espada' carry the record. It anchors the timeline the rest of the file hangs from. The file stays open on it.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":"1731","confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Mission Espada","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Espada","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Reported a presence in the church. Sacred ground in San Antonio, Texas keeps its own kind of haunting — quieter, and harder to dismiss. It survives as local folklore, which is to say it survives because people keep telling it. As folklore it's unkillable: the story is too good, and the place too fitting, to let go.","earliest":null,"evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"Mission Espada","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Espada","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Site access varies; verify before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Mission Espada","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Espada","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":1}}