Mission San Juan Capistrano was founded in 1731 by Spanish Catholics of the Franciscan Order, on the eastern banks of the San Antonio River in present-day San Antonio, Texas. The new settlement was named for a 15th-century theologian and warrior priest who resided in the Abruzzo region of Italy. The mission San Juan was named after Saint John of Capestrano.MissionThe first primitive capilla was built out of brush and mud. Eventually a campanile, or "bell tower" containing two bells was incorporated into the structure, which was replaced by a long granary with a flat roof and an attractive belfry around 1756.In around 1760 construction of a larger church building begun on the east side of the Mission compound, but was never completed due to the lack of sufficient labor. Mission San Juan did not prosper to the same extent as the other San Antonio missions because lands allotted to it were not sufficient to plant vast quantities of crops, or breed large numbers of horses and cattle; a dam was constructed in order to supply water to the Mission's acequia, or irrigation system. .
