The Franciscan Padres intended to found another mission in pretty meadowland a few miles south of San Francisco Bay as soon as the San Francisco mission was well established. As expected, mission Santa Clara de Asís was established only three …
On Easter Sunday, March 31, 1782, Father Serra founded Mission San Buenaventura, the last California mission he established in person. The Spanish King had changed his position again, claiming that a few white settlers were of greater value than any …
The “Queen of the Missions”. On a spring day in 1782, the Padre Presidente of the California Missions, Fr. Junípero Serra, and the Spanish Governor de Neve founded (as Serra supposed) the Presidio and Mission of Santa Barbara. Today, the …
Mission La Purísima was founded on December 8, 1787, at the site of the present town of Lompoc. After 25 years, the mission became extremely prosperous, with herds of livestock numbering in the thousands. Then came the great earthquake of …
As early as 1774, a Franciscan Padre traveled north along the beach from Carmel and located the site for Mission Santa Cruz at the other end of crescent Monterey Bay. He came to the mouth of a fine river, noted …
When the Franciscans founded Mission Nuestra Señora de La Soledad on October 9, 1791, the “Golden Age” of the Spanish missions of California was beginning, and there was anticipation for another successful venture. Gaspar de Portolá, the first to discover …
The Franciscan Missionaries had long hoped to establish a chain of missions in which each link of the chain would be a day’s ride apart on horseback. By 1796, there were thirteen Spanish missions along the California coast from San …