Gómez & Rosales Family of El Paso, Texas

San Geronimo, page 77

San Geronimo (today, Villa Aldama) possessed a Franciscan mission in the early years of the 18th century, but the area was settled and the site named considerably earlier. In 1671, Captain Pedro Cano de los Rios claimed land here, four leagues below the hacienda of Tabalaopa. Ten years later the lands of San Geronimo, including water rights, were sold to the Apresa y Falcon family. A town was founded at San Geronimo by 1707, and somewhat before 1717 the Franciscans established their mission of the same name there, as a satellite of Nombre de Dios. In 1717 the Jesuits founded their own mission of Santa Ana de Chinarras nearby (AGN 1725; AHP 1684A¥a; Almada 1968: 25)

Practically no information on the parish exists until the latter part of the 1700s. After the Jesuit demise in 1767, San Geronimo acquired the mission of Santa Ana as part of its own establishment. According to Almada, San Geronimo was then abandoned two years later, in 1769, when Apaches killed 49 persons and carried off another 10 from here and from Santa Ana. San Geronimo was not (officially) refounded until 1783, when a commission from the General Commander of the Provincias Internas was issued for this purpose (Almada 1968: 25).