An attractive meadowland in the area immediately south of San Francisco Bay had been selected as the site for Mission Santa Clara. Its actual settlement was another matter. Fr. Palou, though willing to set up his mission at Dolores, despite …
Mission San Buenaventura was founded by Father Serra on Easter Sunday, March 31, 1782. The site had been discovered and claimed for Spain by the great navigator, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, almost 50 years to the day after the landing of …
Santa Barbara, like San Diego and Monterey, was listed on the Spanish maps of California long before the arrival of the Franciscans. It had been so named by Sebastian Vizcaíño some 60 years after its discovery by Cabrillo in 1542. …
The original site of La Purísima Concepción, founded by Fr. Lasuén on December 8, 1787, is not far from the center of the present town of Lompoc. The Indians of the area were friendly and receptive to the mission system, …
Mission Santa Cruz was founded on August 28, 1791 and dedicated on September 25 of the same year, although Father Fermín Lasuén, who selected the actual site, was not able to be present at the dedication. The event, of considerable …
The founding of Nuestra Señora de la Soledad on October 9, 1791, coincided with the beginning of the “Golden Age” of California’s missions. The site selected for the new mission had been discovered by Portolá who also gave it the …
By 1796, El Camino Real had become a well-traveled highway, which linked the northern extremity at San Francisco with the southern-most mission at San Diego. The road, however, stretched great lengths through areas occupied by hostile Indians whose presence made …