San Antonio mission reopens as Marianist training center
164 years ago on May 28th, 1861
On this day in 1861, Mission Concepción in San Antonio was solemnly reopened as a training center for postulants and novices of the Marianist order. Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de Acuña Mission was originally established in East Texas in 1716 and moved to its present site in San Antonio in 1731. The four San Antonio missions were partially secularized in 1794, a process that was completed with Mexican independence in 1823. In 1841 the Republic of Texas conveyed the title of ownership of the Concepción church and land to the Catholic Church, represented by Bishop J. M. Odin. Andrew M. Edel, a French Marianist, conditionally purchased the ninety-acre property in 1855 as a farming project to support St. Mary's Institute, a boys' school he had founded. The Marianists transferred the title of Concepción to the bishop in 1911. Soon afterwards an orphanage was built on mission grounds, staffed by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, who also built a convent there in 1926. Concepción is now part of San Antonio Missions National Historical Park.
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From Cabeza de Vaca's ship-wreck in 1528 through the Texas Revolution to present day—almost 500 years of recorded history—a myriad of significant events in Texas history have occurred. These events are arranged by day of the year to allow the reader to see into the past on any specific day.
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