The California Mission Trail ~ Part 1

“The establishment of the missions and presidios from San Diego and Los Angeles and Santa Barbara to Carmel, San Francisco, and Sonoma, traces the colonization of California's Indigenous nations. The five-hundred-mile road that connected the missions was called El Camino Real, the Royal Highway.” - Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.

While the American colonies were busy rebelling against the English Crown, a handful of Spaniards and Mexicans were establishing outposts and blazing an overland route up the California coast, along the New World’s most distant frontier. Beginning in 1769 with the founding of a fortress and a Franciscan mission at San Diego and culminating in 1823 with the founding of another outpost at what is now San Francisco, a series of small but self-reliant religious colonies was established, each a day’s travel apart and linked by El Camino Real, the King’s Highway, a route followed roughly by today’s US‑101.

The main goal was to construct a chain of missions along the Pacific Coast. Between 1769 and 1823 twenty-one missions were established there. The construction of the missions was an economical colonial enterprise. A couple of priests and a small number of soldiers laid the foundations of some permanent settlements.

Although many people played important roles in the establishment of the twenty-one missions, two individuals, Fray Junípero Serra and Fray Fermín Francisco de Lasuén, are particularly noteworthy, each having established nine. The other three missions—Mission Santa Inés (1804), Mission San Rafael Arcángel (1817), and Mission San Francisco (1823)—were built only a few years before the secularization that resulted from Mexico’s independence from Spain. After 1773, upon the recommendation of Father Serra, who was president of the California Missions, the Franciscans focused on building missions in Alta California, and the Dominicans built in Baja California. Thus, the division of California into two distinct parts served administrative as well as clerical purposes.

These messengers of the Catholic faith primarily were charged with converting the indigenous peoples to Christianity, and many received financial support from the monarch, as their work also contributed to Spain's expansion of power. By design, the assignment was to be temporary: upon successful completion of their missions, priests were to move to other frontier areas, spreading their message to new indigenous groups. However, in many places the missionaries remained for extended periods.

Living in California, I had visited many of the local missions particularly Santa Barbara and San Juan Capistrano. When I started my local wandering this year, I put the California mission trail on my local list of things to do and see. In the Summer I plan to travel the El Camino Real and trace the path of the California missionaries as they established each of the 21 missions which are in various states of repair while also exploring the beautiful California Coastline.

San Diego occupies a unique place in California’s history, as the site of the first of the California missions as well as one of the four Spanish presidios. Chosen for its excellent harbor, San Diego provided a ready gateway for the Spanish in their attempt to colonize this part of the Americas.

The mission, which was originally built adjacent to the Presidio, was moved 6 miles in 1774, to free the padres from the unsavory influence of the soldiers.

In 1776, the mission was attacked by hundreds of Indians who were angered by the Spaniards growing influence. Three of the Spaniards were killed, but the Indians were driven off by the better armed defenders. The soldiers stationed at the Presidio slept through the attack.

At its peak in 1824, the mission had 1,829 neophytes, and a herd of more than 9,000 cattle, and 19,000 sheep.  In addition, it produced wheat, barley, corn, beans, peas, and lentils.

Church at Mission San Diego is still open for services. We visited on a Sunday and managed to get in between the first and second morning mass.

As you travel along the coast, the church itself evolves from simple wood carvings to more ornate gold and silver altars reminiscent of churches in Spain.

The missions are characterized by traditional Spanish architecture consists of central courtyards and plants both imported from Europe as well as the indigenous plants local to this area.

Known as “King of the Missions,” San Luis Rey is set within a six-acre central square and marked by an octagonal dome atop the building. A massive lavandería, or open-air laundry, is now an ornate sunken garden where people come for bridal photo shoots.

California’s first pepper tree, planted in 1830, grows in the mission’s plaza.

Still focused on painted and carved wooden frescoes the church as Mission San Luis Rey is beautiful and still an active working church in the community.

The Gardens at San Luis Rey in Oceanside.

Every March, town of San Juan Capistrano welcomes the return of the migrating swallows that spend most of the year here at the mission before flying the 6000 miles to winter in Argentina.

The domes are becoming more prominent, the parish is richer, the church is starting to include precious metals for the altar.

San Gabriel Arcangel Once the most prosperous of the California missions, it now stands quietly and all but forgotten off a remnant of Route 66 east of Los Angeles.

This fortress-like mission boasted a 170-acre vineyard, the largest in the mission chain. Its campanario holds six bells, the oldest cast in 1795. It is currently under renovation.

There was a market in the parking lot and preparation for an event in the grounds surrounding the vineyard. I enjoyed my time exploring the neighborhood and restaurants that are all architected in the mission motif and theme.

Closer to home the Mission San Fernando. From the outside it seems the simplest of the missions that I visited this past Summer, but the inside was a revelation.

Carefully tended buildings and grounds include a convent, winery, gardens, and colonnade with 20 arches. Actor Bob Hope and other L.A. notables are buried in the cemetery.

The altar inside the church is grand, beautifully gilded. A marriage service had just concluded when I visited.

Bob Hope’s grave inside the mission grounds.

Ventura Mission.

A hand-built masonry aqueduct brought water seven miles from the Ventura River to “The Mission by the Sea.”

At its most prosperous, this small mission had a herd of more than 41,000 livestock. While the neighborhood around is deteriorating, and the inside was closed when I got there the mission itself is one of the most beautiful from the outside.

The El Camino Real started as a dirt foot and horse path between the missions. A commonly held "fact" is that the missions were built one day's walk from each other. A few are that close together, but most aren't. The Franciscan friars and the Spanish soldiers who first traversed this highway marked the road by carving crosses in large trees.

Today, The El Camino Real bells mark the route of the mission trail. The idea of marking the highway started with Miss Anna Pitcher in 1892 and was eventually made a reality by Mrs. A.S.C. Forbes of the California Federation of Women's Clubs beginning in 1906. Today, the California Department of Transportation maintains the bells.