San Augustine

San Augustine was a church and school center for the surrounding rural population and was located on State Highway 97 four miles north of Pleasanton in Atascosa County. Its buildings were located between Galvan Creek and Interstate Highway 37, on what had been the land grant of Enrique Esparza, son of Alamo defender Gregorio Esparza (also known as José María Esparza). In 1869 the Catholic bishop of Galveston sent nuns to the area to teach in the adobe San Augustine schoolhouse that had been built by residents near the San Augustine church. In 1904 the school, which was by then no longer exclusively Catholic, had twenty-four students and one teacher; by 1914 its enrollment had increased to forty-eight. A new school was constructed in 1925, but the number of students had dropped to seventeen by 1934, and in 1951 the school building was moved to Pleasanton when the two school districts were consolidated. In 1936 San Augustine had the church, the school, and a few widely scattered farms. The community was no longer marked on maps in the 1980s, but in 1986 a Texas Historical Commission marker was placed at the site by the Atascosa County Historical Commission and the descendents of the Esparza family.