La Purisima

Father Fermin Lasuen founded Mission La Purisima Concepcion de Maria Santisima (Mission of the Immaculate Conception of Most Holy Mary) in 1787.  Today, it's simply known as La Purisima.  It was not the first mission to be called that.  The first was established in the California desert near the Colorado River.  Yuma Indians wiped it out along with another mission seven years earlier.

     Progress on the eleventh mission was slow.  The padres had no funds to start the construction and no master builder to supervise it, so the plans languished until 1800.  Two years later work on the church was finished and a large mission garden surrounded by an adobe wall was in place.  Two more years passed and by then 1500 neophytes were living at the mission.  The mission continued to grow, before long over a hundred buildings were constructed, crops and livestock were raised and an elaborate and efficient water system was developed.

    In 1812 a series of small tremors were felt at the mission and then came a tremendous jolt, which shook the ground for four minutes.  Then a half hour later a strong aftershock hit.  The great earthquake of 1812 was not just restricted to La Purisima.  It did serious damage all the way from Mission Santa Ines in the north to Mission San Fernando in the south, a distance of 100 miles.  It destroyed many of Mission Santa Barbara's buildings.  The continuous aftershocks and a drenching rain sealed La Purisima’s fate, bringing down the church and turning most of the buildings into mud.  Father Mariano Payeras, then in charge, was granted permission to rebuild four miles to the northwest.  It went from being off the beaten path to being on the El Camino Real in La Canada de los Berros (Canyon of the Watercress).  A few years after it was relocated, it became a great ranching enterprise, with over 20,000 cattle and sheep and hundreds of horses, mules, burros and other livestock.

    The peaceful nature of the mission was shattered again in 1824 when a growing conflict between the Chumash and the soldiers exploded into armed revolt.  Beginning at neighboring Mission Santa Ines, the unrest then spread to La Purisima.  The Indians killed a neophyte and four hapless travelers on the road.  They then seized the mission and turned it into a fortress.  This lasted two months until one hundred soldiers from Monterey restored order.  As punishment, seven Indians were executed, and twelve others were sentenced to hard labor at the military fort in Monterey.   

    The mission was secularized in 1834.  A series of administrators that followed were more interested in their own prosperity than in the mission's.  They disposed of most of the land and livestock absconding with the money.  By 1829 only 122 Indians and crumbling buildings were left.  The property then passed from owner to owner until finally in 1933 it was donated to the public by the Union Oil Company. 

    Over the succeeding years, it has been extensively restored and is the most complete and, some say, the most authentic of the twenty-one missions.  The area surrounding the mission is now a State Historical Park with a little under a thousand acres, which is to say the least, only a small portion of the original 300,000 acres.

    To walk onto the property is to walk back in time.  The mission stands much as it did a century and a half ago.  There is no evidence of the modern    world.  You can stand in the middle of the field and turn 360 degrees and there are no cars, no power lines, and no way to tell that you are still in the 21st century.  And to add to the realism, volunteers who are known as Prelado do los Tesoros ("Keeper of the Treasures") dressed in period costumes are busy going about what must have been daily mission tasks.  They provide information and tours in true period style. 

     There is still one more realistic element that gives a further sense of mission life...pigs, goats, sheep, long horned cattle and horses can be found standing in their corals just as others like them must have done so long ago.

NOTE:  La Purisima is the only example in California of a complete Spanish Catholic mission complex and it is the only mission that was laid out in a linear fashion, with no quadrangle.   The mission is part of the La Purisima Mission State Historic Park within the California State Park system.  There is a visitor center that offers guided tours.