Los Ojos de Padre Margil

It has been quite a busy month since I last had time to post something! I presented a conference paper on Sor Juana at SFA's Latin American Studies conference, then another on Cervantes at the South Central MLA convention in Fort Worth. Not to mention all of the grading. My reward for enduring so many twelve-hour workdays was to make return trips to some of the interesting sites nearby. Today I'll write about Los Ojos de Padre Margil here in Nacogdoches, and next time I'll share some pictures of Mission Tejas State Park.

Padre Margil was quite a dynamic figure who founded several missions in Texas, including Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de los Nacogdoches in 1716. Apparently, there was a drought going on that dried up the two creeks that frame Nacogdoches, Banita and La Nana. The story goes that Padre Margil, Moses-like, struck the bank of La Nana creek with a staff twice and water started to flow from those two spots. These new springs came to be known as Los Ojos de Padre Margil (The Eyes of Father Margil).

I of course wanted to go visit the site of this miracle that saved the first European settlement in the place where I now live. This proved a little trickier than I had anticipated. I found the registry of historical markers online, which indicated that it was located at the bridge over La Nana creek on Park Street. The marker was indeed there, next to an old African American cemetery. Down on the creek, however, I couldn't see anything that appeared to be a spring. I assumed that much had changed in the last 300 years and left it at that.

Months later I decided to take the kids to El Camino Real park on Main Street, where Liberty Hall is located.

I discovered that, behind that park, there is another park called Margil Park.

This was a surprise, since we were several blocks from the historical marker at Park St. Then I found another historical marker.

This location proved to be a lot more convincing. It's not actually on the creek, but it is easy to see that it once ran through there. There is a small pond fed by two springs on a small bluff next to it.

The city has built a pleasant walkway that goes over the springs.

Unfortunately, this walkway partially obscures the springs themselves!

Here are some views of the springs from the other side of the pond:

As I've mentioned before, I am not a trained archaeologist or historian, so I really don't if the real site of the Ojos is at Margil park or on Park St.  Please comment if you know more about it. But I do know that Margil park is one of the loveliest places to visit in Nacogdoches.