Presidio Nuestra Señora de Loreto de la Bahía
The Presidio La Bahia (fort on the bay) and Our Lady of Loreto Chapel were constructed in 1721 on the original site of LaSalle's doomed Fort St. Louis on the western shore of Garcitas Creek, near present day Port Lavaca. This location proved unsuitable, because of troubles with the Karankawa Indians and in 1726 it was abandoned and the fort relocated inland (some twenty-six miles) along the Guadalupe River near the site of Mission Valley (northwest of present day Victoria, in Victoria County) and near the Aranama Indians. Presidio La Bahia itself was rebuilt of quarried stone on a site that later became part of Fernando De Leon's Rancho Escondido. For the next twenty-six years the La Bahía mission and presidio prospered; successful farming and cattle ranching enabled the presidio and mission to supply themselves and other Texas missions with ample food.
In the fall of 1749, the presidio and mission were again moved to its present location, this time in accord with the recommendations of Jose de Escandon, whom the Spanish government had authorized in 1747 to explore ways to prevent further encroachment of the English and French.
Lieutenant-General Jose de Escandon was a Spanish colonizer responsible for the first successful settlements along the Rio Grande between Laredo and Brownsville. He was a Spaniard, born in Spain in 1700. Mexico at that time, society was very conscious of a person's background, birth, social class. Since Escandon was born in Spain, Spanish, he would have been called a "peninsular" (a person from "the peninsula"). That was different from a person also of pure Spanish blood who had been born in the Americas, and also different from a person who had been born of a mixed marriage, say Spanish and Indian parents.
Jose de Escandon came to the Americas and arrived in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico at age 15. He enlisted in the Mounted Encomenderos Company as a cadet in a company of cavalry (horse soldiers).
In only six years, he rose to the rank of Lieutenant and transferred to Queretaro (a city in Mexico which is quite well known for it's college of Franciscan missionaries). Six years later (he would have been 27 years old), he returned to Spain and married Dominga Pedrajo in Soto de la Marina, province of Santander, Spain. He returned to Mexico that same year (1727). Another seven years passed and Jose de Escandon was recognized as a very capable officer and was promoted to the rank of Colonel. A few years after becoming a Colonel, he was made a Lieutenant-General of the entire region of Sierra Gorda. This area was centered over the Rio Grande River and was more than 300 miles wide and 200 miles long. One of the settlements founded by Lieutenant-General Escandon was Presidio La Bahia in 1749.
Presidio La Bahia, though an inland frontier fort, became the only fort responsible for the defense of the coastal area and eastern province of Texas after the abandonment of the Presidios at Los Adaes and Los Orcoquisac. Soldiers from Presidio La Bahia assisted the Spanish army in fighting the British along the Gulf Coast during the American Revolution.
This action gives Precidio La Bahia and the community of La Bahia the distinction of being one of the only communities west of the Mississippi River to have participated in the American Revolution in 1776. The Presidio La Bahia is the oldest standing fort west of the Mississippi. Its original purpose was to guard the interests of the Spanish Crown against Native American and French attackers.
One of the most noted early expeditions into Texas was that of Philip Nolan in 1801. As he did not succeed in penetrating as far as La Bahia, it is of little interest to the history of this settlement, although Nolan's expedition was known of and La Bahia alerted about it.
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