Photographs copyright by:  Charlotte Bennett Leitschuh

The following is taken from The Houston County Times of July 11th, 1935

"A crowd estimated at 5,000, including many distinguished Texans and persons from all parts of the State, attended the Fourth of July Pre-Centennial Celebration held Thursday, at which time the beautiful 117-acre San Francisco de los Tejas Mission Park, twenty miles east of Crockett, near the community of Weches, was formally dedicated with impressive rites.  The dedication services were held at the replica of the San Francisco Mission, the first established in Texas, which was founded in 1690 on approximately the same spot where the recently constructed replica was erected.  The site of Texas' second mission, Santissimo Nombre de Maria, is located only four miles to the northeast of the first mission site.

The services were opened with high mass ceremonies under direction of Bishop Christopher E. Byrne, Catholic prelate of the Galveston diocese, in Which Catholics from Galveston, Houston and Dallas participated.  A vested Catholic choir of 50 voices also took part in the high mass, which carried out the dedication of the mission replica with the same ceremonies as were used when the mission was first founded by the Spaniards 245 years ago."