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    San Juan Capistrano
    San Juan Capistrano
    San Juan Capistrano
    Ebook189 pages1 hour

    San Juan Capistrano

    By Pamela Hallan-Gibson, Don Tryon, Mary Ellen Tryon and San Juan Capistrano Historical Society

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    About this ebook

    The legendary swallows aren’t the only annual returnees to San Juan Capistrano. The great coastal mission draws more than 500,000 visitors a year into the southern reaches of Orange County. The most famous of all the missions in the California system established in the 18th century by Franciscan friar Junipero Serra, Mission San Juan Capistrano still contains the Serra Chapel, the oldest church in California, and the only building still standing where the good padre celebrated mass. But San Juan Capistrano is more than its well-known mission. Its epic story encompasses the rancho days and land barons, California statehood, the arrival of the San Diego Freeway in 1958, city incorporation in 1961, and recent growth from 10,000 residents in 1974 to 34,000 in 2004.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439630983
    San Juan Capistrano
    Author

    Pamela Hallan-Gibson

    Through vintage pictures, Pamela Hallan-Gibson, author of Orange County: The Golden Promise and Two Hundred Years in San Juan Capistrano, and Kathy Swett, the former executive director of the Sonoma Community Center for 12 years, have chronicled the building's remarkable role in the history of one of California's oldest towns.

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      Book preview

      San Juan Capistrano - Pamela Hallan-Gibson

      Tryon

      INTRODUCTION

      San Juan Capistrano has a rich and colorful history. From its beginnings as an outpost of Spain to its prominence as a city in Orange County, California, dedicated to honoring the past, San Juan Capistrano has thrived on challenge and turned adversity into opportunity.

      Mission San Juan Capistrano was founded in 1776, the seventh of the chain of missions founded by Fr. Junipero Serra. It flourished in its early decades, but suffered a spiritual decline after the earthquake of 1812. It rose again in the 1890s and was restored and flourishing by the 1920s, gaining international prominence as the annual return of the swallows on March 19 became well publicized. Today it serves as the heart of the cultural community of San Juan Capistrano, providing educational as well as entertainment venues for the region.

      The town grew up as an outgrowth of the mission settlement, becoming a pueblo in 1841. It changed over time, adding amenities such as schools, stores, hotels, and eateries, becoming a prominent stop on the Santa Fe Railway line after 1887, just as it was a halfway stop between Los Angeles’s and San Diego’s stage lines earlier. Dominated by the ranchos of the Mexican and American period, it later turned to agriculture as an economic mainstay. The city incorporated in 1961 and took on its own unique character, one that mixes preservation and progress.

      Today’s community, in the southern portion of the county, continues to be a magnet both for tourists wanting to experience early California and residents looking for a safe, urban community that honors its heritage. As it marches forward into the 21st century with such modern amenities as a desalinization plant and a state-of-the-art website, it still maintains its rural character through its trail system, tree conservation, ridgeline and open space protection, and historic preservation.

      Despite a turbulent past that included a pirate raid, smallpox epidemic, cattle-destroying droughts, bandit attacks, and devastating fires and floods, San Juan Capistrano, like the mission that gave it its name, continues to meet the challenges of the future with dignity, grace and a spirit of optimism.

      The mission corridor creates a sense of peace and serenity. The white pigeon resting on the pillar shows how the aura of the mission soothes the soul.

      One

      IN THE NAME OF THE CROWN

      1776–1821

      Fr. Junipero Serra founded San Juan Capistrano on November 1, 1776, amid tumult and uncertainty. The proceedings were witnessed by a delegation of soldiers and curious onlookers from the Acagcheme tribe that would be given the name Juaneno.

      The mission was part of a Spanish plan to establish missions, military outposts, and settlements in California in order to spread Catholicism, discourage settlement by other foreigners, and act as a buffer between native populations and the European culture that would be imposed on them.

      Gathering converts from the area, the mission thrived in its earliest years. There were 944 Indian neophytes by 1796, with 1,649 baptisms. Fields were planted with wheat, barley, corn, and beans, and there were herds of cattle and horses roaming a vast territory. Buildings were constructed, including 40 adobes in 1794 and 34 more in 1807. These were outside the mission walls and were primarily used for housing.

      The most ambitious project was the Great Stone Church, begun in 1797 and completed in 1806. Despite having thick walls and domes of masonry, the building was destroyed in an earthquake in 1812 that killed 40 people and demoralized the mission community. Falling into a decline thereafter, the mission was plundered by the pirate Hippolyte Bouchard in 1818, and faltered both in its conversions and its production, never regaining the glory of its beginning.

      King Carlos III was on the throne of Spain when Mission San Juan Capistrano was founded in 1776. He granted control of thousands of acres of land to the missionaries, who were to hold it in trust for the Indians. The Spanish Crown used three institutions to colonize California: the pueblo, the presidio, and the mission. All three relied on a royal land grant for their existence. The missions were responsible for converting Native Americans to Christianity, preparing them to live in a Western European culture, and to make them loyal subjects of the crown. This training was to take 10 years, but in fact it took 50 before land was returned to the Indians. Carlos III died in 1789.

      Fr. Junipero Serra, a Franciscan scholar from Mallorca, was appointed to undertake the establishment of missions in California. He founded Mission San Juan Capistrano as the seventh in the Alta California chain, naming it for St. John of Capestrano, an Italian saint whom he admired. He first attempted to establish it in 1775, but an uprising in San Diego delayed the mission’s founding until November 1, 1776.

      The founding document for the mission demonstrates how interdependent mission settlements were in California. Father Serra itemizes the contributions of grains, livestock, and tools that came from Mission San Gabriel. These were used for food and to establish crops and herds. Articles for the church—the first building to be constructed—were also sent.

      Fr. Geronimo Boscana was assigned to the mission from 1814 to 1826. The life of a missionary was occupied with teaching manual skills and spiritual concepts, with little time for intellectual pursuits. In his spare time, Boscana wrote about the culture of the Juaneno Indians in his care, calling the manuscript Chinigchinich, the name of the deity they worshipped.

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