A Trip to Mesa

Our trip over to the suburb of Mesa was occasioned by my daughter's desire to visit Design Lab, a unique retail shop full of stuff just worthy of checking out.

It's located in a beautiful old red brick building right in the heart of the arts district on Main Street in downtown Mesa.  The trappings are warehousey and you can spend a couple of hours just browsing the one-of-a-kind items, writing implements, papers and journals, lamps, pillows, doodads, furniture, and a little bit of just everything you might want to decorate your home.

I loved the rustic doors located down the hall toward the corner of the store.

The hallway leading to the entrance is lined with posters, signs,  photographs, and other pieces of framed art.  This is one of my favorite quotes.

There are also some shops upstairs in this building and I believe some professional offices but we didn't veture up this shiny metal staircase.  Maybe next time.

A Texas Road Trip 3.1

Day 3 of the road trip found me leaving found me leaving San Antonio before the city traffic became congested with my first stop in Castroville, 30 miles west, in search of the old Medina County Courthouse.  I also found St. Louis Cathedral, a quaint little church built of native limestone between 1868 and 1870.

Outside the front of the church is a strike statue of St. Louis, the warrior king of France who participated in the Crusades and who ruled the French kingdom from 1226 from the time he was 12 years old until the year 1270.

You may be thinking, like I was, why is a church in a town with the very Latino name of Castroville named for a French saint.  The city was settled by Henri Castro, a Jewish banker from France who became one of the most important empresarios in Texas.  An empresario is defined as a person who is given a right to settle upon land in exchange for recruiting and taking responsibility for new settlers. Castro began recruiting in Paris and eventually was responsible for the settlement of people from Alsace, Baden, and Switzerland.  Other settlers eventually arrived who were German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian.  Texas became a true melting pot, and land was plentiful and cheap.  After all this history, isn't it amazing that Texans are among the most irritable when it comes to questions of immigration!  (Sorry for the political comment.  I try my darnedess not to do that but it's almost laughable!)

The church in Castroville has celebrated St. Louis Day in August of every year in celebration of the Feast of St. Louis since 1847 when the first St. Louis parish church was established in this little town.

While I was taking photos of the church and the statue of St. Louis, a gentleman who had been sitting outside the church and had moved thinking he was in the way of my photos approached me and we struck up a conversation.  He kept inviting me to come see the interior of the church but I declined, not wanting to get a late start on my day's journey as I had the day before by going on a historic house tour.  He told me there were workers inside the church who had been repainting and giving the sanctuary a thorough cleaning.  I finally agreed to take a look-see and I was definitely glad I did.  It was absolutely beautiful and gleaming.  He said it was the first fresh coat of paint in 20 years.  The tile floor were sparkling with wax and there was not a speck of dust to be found.  I loved the curved wooden beams in the ceiling, and although the pews were stacked on top of each other it looked almost perfect.  I could understand his feelings of affection when he told me that the next day was the 45th anniversary of his wedding in this church and how much St. Louis meant to him and the entire community.

The Castroville City Hall was originally the Medina County Courthouse.  This building was constructed in 1854 and is one of the oldest original courthouses still standing and still in use, although not as a courthouse.  A special election in 1892 changed to county seat from Castroville to Hondo.

I just happened upon this very interesting door during my drive up and down some of the streets of Castroville.

Population:  2,700
Location:  300 miles south of Dallas, 220 miles west of Houston, 1,680 miles southeast of Castroville, California, and 350 miles southwest of my home in Garrison, Tx.

Mission San Jose - San Antonio

Founded in 1720, Mission San Jose is the largest of the Texas missions.  Its imposing complex of stone walls, bastions, granary, and magnificent church was completed in 1782.  It is located a short drive from downtown San Antonio.  We actually took the trolley which dropped us off and we stayed for two hours and still didn't have time to take the guided tour which is offered by the National Park Service.

Much of what is visible today at Mission San Jose was reconstructed by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s as part of the New Deal.  The dome and the bell tower and one of the mission walls had been destroyed over the intervening century and a half.

Fine carvings rivaling those of European edifices on the facade of San Jose's church gave it the title "Queen of the Missions."  A recent restoration was accomplished of the carvings by unknown artisans.

The present carved doors were crafted in 1937 by Peter Mansbendel to replace those removed in the 1880s' renovation attempted by the Benedectine monks. Mansbendel reproduced the original door design in 2.5-inch thick black walnut in a mere six weeks.   Small doors fitted within the larger ones are used to enter the church.

La Ventana de Rosa, the Rose Window, is located on the south wall of the church sacristy.  The window, sculpted ca. 1775, has been the object of both legend and admiration.  It is considered one of the finest examples of baroque architecture in North America.  The meaning behind the name is currently unknown, but legend has it named for Rosa, the betrothed of Juan Huizar who many believe created the window.

A simple cross sands in a small garden in front of the convento which provided housing for the missionaries and the lay assistants.  In 1795 the convento consisted of nine rooms downstairs and five upstairs.  The ruins standing today reflect a major renovation begun by Benedectine monks who took over the mission in the 1850s.  Benedictines from Latrobe, Pennsylvania, purchased the mission complex from the Diocese of San Antonio with plans of developing it as a school for boys. The American Civil War intervened and the property reverted to the diocese, and the work was never completed.

Mission San Jose is an active parish.  Visitors are welcome to attend mass on Sundays.

This will conclude my series on the San Antonio visit.  I hope you have enjoyed seeing what I saw.  There are a few other posts that I will be making in the future based on some of the cities I went through during the five-hour drive to and from San Antonio.  Since returning I've discovered that Vicksburg, Mississippi, is closer to my home than San Antonio!  Texas is indeed a large land and I'm in love with its history.

San Antonio Federal Building

In the preceding post about the San Antonio post office mural I had a great shot of the lobby that I wanted to post to show the gorgeous interior of this building.  It's almost as if the lobby were constructed to showcase the murals rather than the other way around.  And then while renaming the images for a file I keep of my blog posts I ACCIDENTALLY COPIED ONE OF THE MURAL PHOTOS OVER THE PHOTO OF THE LOBBY!  I tried everything I could think of to get it back but nothing worked.  So if you know of a way to uncover that image, PLEASE DON'T TELL ME.  I don't want to know at this point because I'll just kick myself again for being such an idiot.

So in the alternative, above is a photo of one tiny area of the lobby but with enough detail that you can see the beautiful arched windows and the chandeliers which hang throughout.

The exterior of the beautiful Hipolito F. Garcia Federal Building and United States Courthouse is also an architectural beauty.  The Beaux Arts style structure was one of many new post offices constructed in the mid to late 1930s under Roosevelt's New Deal program to relieve widespread unemployment due to the Great Depression.  Many of these new post office buildings were chosen for the mural program.  The San Antonio post office and courthouse was the first federal building in the country to be installed with a new technology called air conditioning.  It is located on Alamo Plaza across the street from the Alamo and today still houses a branch of the U.S. Post Office and the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

The exterior entrances are equally ornate, consisting of brass ornamentation featuring eagles and shields under arches.  The building was renamed in honor of Judge Hipolito Frank Garcia in 2004.

Fleas 'N Tiques

Seen in an Alleyway

Hillsboro, Texas

Linking to Lesley's Signs,Signs