The fourth of five 2019-dated releases to appear as part the United States Mint’s America the Beautiful Five Ounce Silver Uncirculated Coin™ series will be the 2019 San Antonio Missions America the Beautiful Silver Uncirculated Coin. Shown on the reverse of the strike will be a design emblematic of San Antonio Missions National Historical Park of Texas.
Aside from being the forth to appear in 2019 as part of the series, this coin will also mark the forty-ninth of the program overall. When completed, the series will include a total of fifty-six new coins.
The series debuted with five 2010-dated coins. An additional five are released in the program annually until 2021 when the last of the fifty-six will be issued.
Each coin of the series is struck as the numismatic versions of the America the Beautiful Silver Bullion Coins™. Both these silver uncirculated coins and their bullion counterparts feature designs originally created for the America the Beautiful Quarters® Program.
These designs include an obverse portrait of George Washington, by John Flanagan, and a reverse emblematic of a selected site of national interest. One site was chosen to be included in the programs from each state, the District of Columbia and the five US territories.
Despite having similar designs as the quarters, both the uncirculated coins and the bullion coins feature much different specifications than the quarters. Each silver coin is struck from five ounces of .999 fine silver to a diameter of three inches. In contrast, the quarter dollars are typically struck from cupro-nickel and have a diameter of just 0.955 inches.
San Antonio Missions National Historical Park of Texas
The San Antonio Missions National Historical Park is located in San Antonio, Texas. It was established on April 1, 1983.
The park was created to preserve four of the five Spanish frontier missions built in the area. This includes the Mission Concepcion, Mission San Jose, Mission San Juan, and Mission Espada. The fifth, although not a part of the national historical park, is the Mission San Antonio de Valero, better known to most today as the Alamo.
These missions were built by members of the Catholic religious orders as an opportunity to spread Christianity to the Native Americans of the region.
The national park service uses this descriptive paragraph for the national historical park:
"A New God and King"
"After 10,000 years, the people of South Texas found their cultures, their very lives under attack. In the early 1700s Apache raided from the north, deadly diseases traveled from Mexico, and drought lingered. Survival lay in missions. By entering a mission, they foreswore their traditional life to become Spanish. They accepted a new all-knowing god and pledged fealty to a distance and unseen king."