The Franciscans had selected an attractive meadowland in the area immediately south of San Francisco Bay as the site of Mission Santa Clara de Asís. Its actual settlement was another matter, though. Father Palóu, willing to set up his mission …
Mission San Buenaventura was founded by Father Serra on the Easter Sunday of March 31, 1782. The site had been discovered and claimed for the Spanish King by the great navigator Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, almost 50 years after the landing …
Santa Barbara, like San Diego and Monterey, was listed on the Spanish maps of California long before the arrival of the Franciscan Friars. It had been so named by Sebastian Vizcaíño, some 60 years after its discovery by Cabrillo in …
The original site of La Purísima Concepción, founded by Father Lasuén on December 8, 1787, is not far from the center of the present town of Lompoc. The American Indians of the area were friendly and receptive to the mission …
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 Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad in the Salinas Valley on October 9, 1791, coincided with the beginning of the Golden Age of California’s missions. Gaspar de Portolá had first discovered the location selected for the new …
The Genesis of Mission San José is connected to the development of El Camino Real. By 1796, El Camino Real had become a well-traveled highway that joined the northern extremity at San Francisco with the southernmost mission at San Diego. …