DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker at Rancho del Atascoso has to say — and friend, this one goes back a long, long way. Now, before Texas was Texas, before the cattle drives and the barbed wire and the whole mythology of the working ranch, somebody had to figure out how this land operated. And the story of Rancho del Atascoso is, in its quiet way, that somebody.
It starts with a mission. In 1720, Misión San José y San Miguel de Aguayo was erected near what is now San Antonio — built to Christianize and colonize the local Native Americans, and to offer a safe refuge for those who had abandoned east Texas missions in the wake of French conflict. A mission that size, with that purpose, needed land to work.
It needed cattle and horses and sheep and mules and the hands to tend them all. So the friars established Rancho San Miguel. That was the first rancho for Misión San José, and it operated until the 1750s.
But here's where the trouble crept in: the journey from the mission out to Rancho San Miguel proved too inconvenient. Too dangerous. Those are the marker's own words — too inconvenient and too dangerous — and you don't use both of those words unless the situation earned them.
So the friars built again. They built Rancho del Atascoso — the second working ranch established to serve five missions constructed near present-day San Antonio. They put it closer to Misión San José.
The rancho stretched north of present-day Poteet, and the southern boundary reached just north of what is now Pleasanton. That's a wide swath of South Texas ground, and ranchos of that era were typically very large with loosely defined borders. Which is a polite way of saying: if you were a cow, you might not know exactly whose land you were standing on, but the count was kept regardless.
And what a count it was. In 1767 or 1768 — the marker gives us that honest little hedge — a friar named Fray Gaspar José de Solís rode through and described what he found. Ten droves of mares.
Four droves of mules. Thirty harnesses. Fifteen hundred yoke of oxen.
Five thousand head of sheep and goats. And all the necessary farming implements — plowshares, plows, hoes, axes, bars, and so on. When you hear a list like that read aloud, you start to understand that this was not a modest operation.
This was an enterprise. Because every single day, Rancho del Atascoso functioned as what the marker calls a laboratory — a place where Native American converts were instructed in the fundamentals of European-style agriculture and stock raising. Tending cows, horses, goats, and sheep.
Friars worked there. Soldiers worked there. Civilians too.
The rancho demanded all of them. But ranches don't last forever — they transform. Rancho del Atascoso was abandoned somewhere between 1768 and 1777, succeeded by Rancho San Lucas.
One operation giving way to another, the land passing its purpose down the line. And then, in the 1790s, Misión San José y San Miguel de Aguayo was secularized. The formal mission structure wound down.
But the people didn't leave. Descendants of the native converts and of the early settlers stayed in that stretch of South Texas for generations. That's the part worth sitting with.
The mission ended. The rancho was abandoned. The Spanish colonial project moved on to whatever came next.
But the people who had worked that land, who had learned on it and built on it — they stayed. And when private ranching models followed in the footsteps of these early ranchos, as the marker tells us they did, those footsteps had already been worn deep into the ground right here, somewhere between present-day Poteet and Pleasanton, long before anyone thought to put up a sign about it.
What the marker says
Rancho del Atascoso was the second working ranch established to serve five missions constructed near present-day San Antonio, namely Misión San José y San Miguel de Aguayo. This mission was erected in 1720 to Christianize and colonize the local Native Americans and as a safe refuge for those abandoning east Texas missions after French conflict. The first rancho for Misión San José was Rancho San Miguel, which operated until the 1750s. However, travel from the mission to Rancho San Miguel proved too inconvenient and too dangerous. The friars built Rancho del Atascoso to be closer to Misión San José. The rancho stretched north of present-day Poteet, and the southern boundary reached just north of the present town of Pleasanton. Ranchos were typically very large with loosely defined borders. In 1767 or 1768, Fray Gaspar José de Solís described the rancho having “10 droves of mares, 4 droves of mules, 30 harnesses, 1500 yoke of oxen, 5000 head of sheep and goats, and all necessary farming implement, such as plowshares, plows, hoes, axes, bars, etc.” Rancho del Atascoso was abandoned between 1768-1777 in favor of its successor, Rancho San Lucas. Daily, the rancho served as a laboratory where Native American converts would be instructed in the fundamentals of European-style agriculture and stock raising, tending to cows, horses, goats and sheep. Friars, soldiers and civilians also worked to sustain the ranchos. Private ranching models followed in the footsteps of these early efforts. When Misión San José y San Miguel de Aguayo became secularized in the 1790s, descendants of the native converts and early settlers stayed in the area for generations. (2017)