According to ancient records, the water that irrigated 2,400 acres of rich black soil and was used for domestic purposes at San Jose Mission was taken from the San Antonio River two miles above the present Mission, one-half mile above Mission road bridge and about one-fourth mile north of the south city limits of San Antonio. A wing dam was made at the present intersection of Loraine Street and the river by rolling the tufa stone into place along the north back of the river which was much lower than the south side which has a 25 foot embankment where no wall was necessary. This dam was almost 100 feet wide at the lower and with walls about five feet thick at the base across the river. This base or foundation of buried tufa stone can be plainly outlined for 400 feet up stream on the north side. The river which cut through the north wall of the dam today runs northeast instead of its natural southeasterly direction.

The labor used in constructing the dam, ditch and buildings was done by the Indians of "Comanche Land" and under the supervision of the Padres. The tufa stone quarry, one-half mile north of the dam, is now a large pecan grove on the west side of the Mission road and between the two Catholic schools. from this quarry all of the tufa stone was carried to the dam, one-half mile south, and to the San Jose Mission, two and one-half miles further south, on litters on the shoulders of the Indians. A picture now of a Comanche carrying this rock would today be worth the money and possibly this is the reason they "let the women do the work."

This tufa stone is a chemical deposit of impure vesicular limestone and is found only where thermal waters percolate through the Pleistocene gravel underlying the valley of the San Antonio River and is not the "good building material" these good old padres thought it was. In fact it is a very poor building material, very little better than adobe and is without any question whatever, the direct cause of destruction of the mission. The padres took it to be a siliceous tufa called traveltine in Old Spanish which is a very competent building stone. The foundation of none of these buildings ever gave away and are now as good as the day they were laid. However all Texas historians attribute their destruction to poor foundation. An examination by them would prove their error.

These padres were adept in the mixing of mortar, as structures where their mortar was used, which was mixed with milk, is as hard as real limestone; an instance, at the head of the ditch on the river there still stands a part of the original water gap which led the water into the ditch and their mortar still stands. About 300 feet below this is a "Governor ditch" which shunts back into the river the surplus water during flood times and another of the same character and purpose. It would appear, one-fourth mile below. Apparently those old padres never overlooked anything.

Again they showed their ability in guiding this water two miles to the Mission, with but a 12-inch gradient to San Jose Mission. Evidently they had no up-to-date C. E. transit with which to lay out the ditch so they led the water into the head of the ditch and let it be their level.

The records show the dam went out and an American engineer replaced it with wood which also went out and it was then replaced with rock and mortar which was left out of the first construction. It then withstood the storm water and for many years afterwards the ditch flowed pure fresh water back into the river a the present Mission Burial Park after irrigating 1,500 acres below the Mission.

The ditch was dug "leading in" water level and of necessity followed the contours of the terrain and is very crooked, forming semicircles, and running at all angles, crossing the present Mission road several times. Its path may be outlined in many places by large pecan and other trees now growing along its bank and in the ditch. At other places it can only be determined by unworked and reworked earth all the way to and beyond the Mission. The waters of the ditch at the Mission was 15 feet wide and about four feet deep, as one of the records show a padre quoted it, "Like a river."

A big chief of the Comanches who led the Indians in the first battle and siege of the Mission had his camp in the beautiful pecan grove at the head of this ditch. Many of the Indians were killed while swimming in the waters of the dam by a surprise raid of the soldiers from the Mission who said a Frenchman led the fight on San Jose and had many scalps tied to his belt. About 900 Comanches took part in this battle. The deep ditch running east from the deep reservoir and powder-mill at the Mission was used by the Comanches where they picked off the soldiers and the Pena Tehkas (Sugar Eaters) Indians on the roof of the buildings during the siege of San Jose after they had let out the water.

About one mile below the head of the ditch where a continuation of Harlan Avenue crosses the Mission road and about 300 feet from the Mission road may be seen the outline of the original San Jose Mission, which the records show was abandoned on account of being too near the river, making it unhealthy. Nothing is left of it except chink-rocks and a faint outline of foundations of three houses.

As it usual with all the abandoned Missions the building rocks were carted away. Evidently the gravel for these foundations was obtained from the ditch which at this point was cut through a gravel ridge and was about 10 feet deep. This gravel was piled up and leveled off for the three houses. About 250 feet further down the ditch there was originally a water gap some of which yet remains from which water was taken, and a lateral was directed around the tail end of the graveled ridge, east and north of the old original Mission thence over the irrigated lands below.

This place was supposed to have been abandoned on account of fogs and its proximity to the river which made it unhealthy, but the deep cut so near the Mission evidently made it more so on account of the use which could be and was made of it by the Comanches. These quarters were used probably for the first two years while building the dam and digging the ditch also during the construction of the Mission buildings also awaiting the arrival of sufficient water at the Mission. The arrival of the water in the ditch was a very important event as it necessarily determined the location of the building of San Jose. Judging by the terrain and the narrow range of the gradient of the ditch it was necessary to locate San Jose on the ditch instead of the ditch at San Jose owing to the absorbent nature of the underlying gravel along its route.

From the Mission the ditch which ran only six feet outside of the easternmost wall it circled around the Mission to the south and can be easily followed by the trees along the ditch after cutting across the west corner of the city gravel pit. But here it takes off at almost right angles to the southeast through a large field where the layman will become bewildered and quite likely follow the line of trees to the southwest along an old city sewer ditch where the waters then ran in an opposite direction to his path.

At the turn above mentioned the original ditch runs southeast through a field which it irrigated 150 years ago which has been plowed and cultivated until it was necessary for the writer to use not only his transit but a two-inch auger, spades, his geology and mineralogy to determine the reworked from the unworked earth of this ditch to its ending and its return again of the surplus waters back into the river at San Jose Burial Park just above the dam which today furnishes water to irrigate the many truck farms at Mission San Juan.

The mother ditch which carried the waters of the San Antonio River to Mission San Jose is now, in places, only an ugly scar across the earth, forming puddles of mosquito infested water holes after each rain. It has long since ceased to function as a profitable conveyance of water to the adjacent thirsty lands from the San Antonio River to and beyond the Mission and on to the gates of the Mission Burial Park, a distance of four and one-half miles.

Thousands of dollars are being expended on the restoration of the Mission itself, which is a very laudable enterprise, but when it is restored, something is lacking. The silent walls of this ancient structure seem to beg for that most important and incomplete something which is lacking, and that is water. Where is the water which made possible the establishment of this Mission? Where is the ditch which carried a stream 15 feet through the Mission, where the Padres caught many large fish? Where is the dam they constructed across the river to shunt the water into the intake? Not one person in a thousand San Antonians can answer these Centennial questions.

Yet it is plain to be seen even today. Not one in 100 knows where this ancient acequia made flowed in Missionary days, where it not only supplied water to the Mission but to irrigate 2,400 acres of crops and vegetables along the whole of its path which can be traced today only by a geologist.

The tourist from the North loves action and being interested in this Mission gives vent to his feelings, "Why is the water not flowing in the ditch? Why spend so much money in restoring these walls and leave out the most important thing of all."

The business man, also from the North, will say,"Why do the people of San Antonio overlook such a good bet?" "It would be a good business proposition to put water back in this ditch if only to sell it to truck farmers."

This would really be a good investment from both sides of the proposition regardless of the Centennial now coming on, either as a necessary adjunct to the Mission project as an added attraction, not to mention the historical phase, or as a self-renumerative business project. It would be an 85 per cent labor job where many unemployed San Antonians could be put to work at home.

This would of necessity be a city-county affair as the wing dam and the first quarter mile of ditch would be north of the south city limits and the other part in the county.