The Art and Architecture of the Texas MissionsWinner, Presidio La Bahia Award, Sons of the Republic of Texas Built to bring Christianity and European civilization to the northern frontier of New Spain in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries secularized and left to decay in the nineteenth century and restored in the twentieth century, the Spanish missions still standing in Texas are really only shadows of their original selves. The mission churches, once beautifully adorned with carvings and