Rancho de Patguilla

Rancho de Patguilla. . , In 1731, the Spanish government relocated Mission San José de Los Nazonis, founded in east Texas, to a new site on the east bank of the San Antonio River. They renamed the mission San Juan Capistrano. There, Franciscan missionaries from the College of Santa Cruz de Querétaro instructed Native Americans in Christianity and European methods of farming and ranching. Later, San Juan Capistrano was transferred to the administration of the College of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe de Zacatécas. The Spanish government allocated large quantities of land to each mission for farm and ranch land to supply the missions with the food, meat, horses and other needed products to those living in the mission. Around 1740, the Spanish government granted Mission San Juan Capistrano 15 leagues, or around 66,420 acres of land as a ranch, which they named Rancho de Pataguilla. The land sprawled across present-day Bexar, Wilson and Karnes Counties. , Moderate improvements, such as corrals, and jacales are noted in traveler’s diaries. The corrals are thought to have been at Laguna de Pataguilla in Lodi, near present-day Floresville. The La Bahía Road, re-named the Goliad Road in 1829, ran through the land of Rancho de Pataguilla. The ranch reported thousands of sheep and cattle during the mid-1700s. Vaqueros of Spanish and Native American descent cared for livestock, driving herds to the mission regularly. In 1757, a land dispute arose between Andrés Hernández and Luís Menchaca. As a result, Rancho de Pataguilla’s southern border was fixed at Pajarito Creek. The rancho’s cattle were subject to numerous branding requirements and consolidation in the late 1700s. After the mission was secularized in 1794, the rancho land was subdivided and developed.