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 “Queen of the Missions”. On a spring day in 1782 the Padre Presidente of the California Missions, Father Junípero Serra, and the Spanish Governor de Neve founded (as Serra supposed) the presidio and mission of Santa Barbara. Today the …
Mission Santa Barbara, the tenth mission in the California Mission Chain, was founded on the Feast of Saint Barbara, December 4th, 1786 by Father Fermin de Lasuén. The legend holds that, when still a girl, Saint Barbara was beheaded by her father …