Espada Dam

We all know about Mission San Francisco De Espada. We know it’s history and some other facts about the mission. Just a little over a mile up the road is the Espada Dam. The Espada Dam was constructed in 1745, it was used to divert water from the San Antonio River and the San Pedro Creek to the missions grounds and also to the surrounding fields at the missions through the acequia systems, also know as the irrigation ditches. This was used to irrigate the fields around the missions, and brings water to the mission grounds. The dam was used this way so the missionaries wouldn’t have to manually transport water from the river to the fields at the missions and to the mission grounds. This dam shows that just because they didn’t have the technology we have today, that it was still possible to construct something we still use to this very day. This is just a example of what they were able to do construct out of rock and mud. It looked like they used some kind of sediment rock like limestone or something similar to that kind of rock, and for the cement and filling they used what looked like mud, that they put between each layer of rock that they put down.
The Espada Dam is still used today at this day and time when technology is the way it is. You would think that the Espada Dam would have been replaced by a dam of today’s technology. Today the Espada Dam is used to irrigate the fields around the river and around Mission Espada. So it is basically used the same as it was when it was used in the missionary times. The dam itself doesn’t look in to terrible of condition, it still looks like it could withstand the pressure of the flowing San Antonio River. On the bank by the Espada Dam is a plaque, giving the history and what the dam was used for and when it was built and what it was built of.
This was a exciting project to work on, I learned a great deal about the Missions of San Antonio, and about the Espada Dam. I learned what the missions were truly used for and how the Spanish missionaries turned the Native Americans into civilized human beings. I also learned a great deal about the Espada Dam, and what it was used for and the history behind the Espada Dam.