Mission Dolores History | Texas Historical Commission

Welcome to Mission Dolores State Historic Site. Misión Nuestra Señora de los Dolores de los Ais was a Spanish mission built in 1721 along the El Camino Real de los Tejas. Visitors are invited to explore the site’s rich history at the museum, which tells the history of the Spanish in East Texas. Stroll along the El Camino Real walking trails and enjoy the real sights and stories of this real place in East Texas. The site also has an RV park, picnic areas, and group pavilions.

Typically, one or two Spanish priests as well as a few soldiers and their families lived at the mission. The priests worked to convert the local Ais Native Americans to Roman Catholicism, while the soldiers provided protection on the frontier. During its half-century in existence, Mission Dolores was relatively unsuccessful in converting the Ais, who only lived at the mission on a temporary basis. The priests and soldiers cooperated, traded, and lived peacefully with the Ais. The Spanish missionaries also cooperated and traded with the French traders in nearby Natchitoches.
Mission Dolores was located on the El Camino Real de los Tejas, and it generally was a vibrant scene of cultural mixing, collaboration, and peaceful coexistence. While the Spanish and French empires were frequently enemies of one another on the larger geopolitical stage, the realities in the more remote areas were often much different.
In the region of eastern New Spain, for example, small communities of Spanish and French residents, traders, and travelers relied upon one another–and upon local Native Americans–for goods, aid, and even simple companionship.
Following the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, France lost nearly all North American land claims and was no longer a geopolitical threat along New Spain’s eastern frontier. As a result, within a decade of the war’s end, the Spanish missions in East Texas were systematically closed, including Mission Dolores in 1773. Although much is still unknown about the culture and history of the Ais, it appears they suffered a population decline around the same time the Spanish permanently abandoned Mission Dolores.
In the early 19th century, Anglo-American settlers began to migrate into the region and the town of San Augustine was established about a half-mile from the abandoned mission’s location. The Anglo-American settlers were aware that there had been a mission nearby, but the exact site was unknown. In fact, the property was in private hands and several homes were constructed on the former mission site during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Beginning in the 1960s, professional archeological investigations sought to determine the exact location of the mission. During the 1970s-1980s, archeologists from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches led field schools in the area and confirmed the location where Mission Dolores once stood.
Although construction of Highway 147 destroyed a significant portion of the site and no above-ground features remained, excavations revealed middens, wells, post holes, wall remnants, and other 18th-century features. Many artifacts including lithic, ceramic, metal, and faunal items relating to the Spanish, French, and Ais cultures were recovered. In the early 1990s, the City of San Augustine acquired the site, preserving the archeological remains and creating a museum.
In 2016, the City of San Augustine asked the Texas Historical Commission (THC) to assume ownership of the site, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is also a designated State Antiquities Landmark. The THC welcomed Mission Dolores as an official state historic site that year.