The Old Franciscan Missions of California | Page 3

SOLANO, AT SONOMA
CAMPANILE AND CHAPEL, SAN ANTONIO DE PALA
ANOTHER VIEW OF THE CAMPANILE AND CHAPEL, SAN
ANTONIO DE PALA
MAIN DOORWAY AT SANTA MARGARITA CHAPEL

HIGH SCHOOL, RIVERSIDE, CALIF
WALL DECORATIONS ON OLD MISSION CHAPEL OF SAN
ANTONIO DE PALA
ARCHES AT GLENWOOD MISSION INN, RIVERSIDE, CALIF.
TOWER, FLYING BUTTRESSES, ETC., GLENWOOD MISSION
INN
ARCHES OVER THE SIDEWALK, GLENWOOD MISSION INN
RESIDENCE OF FRED MAIER, LOS ANGELES, CALIF
WASHINGTON SCHOOL, VISALIA, CALIF
THE OLD ALTAR AT THE CHAPEL OF SAN ANTONIO DE PALA
ALTAR AND INTERIOR OF CHAPEL OF SAN ANTONIO DE
PALA AFTER REMOVAL OF WALL DECORATIONS PRIZED BY
INDIANS
ALTAR AND CEILING DECORATIONS, MISSION SANTA INÉS
INTERIOR OF MISSION SAN FRANCISCO DE ASIS
INTERIOR OF MISSION SAN MIGUEL, FROM THE CHOIR
GALLERY
ARCHES, SOUTHERN PACIFIC RAILWAY DEPOT, SANTA
BARBARA, CALIF
FACHADA OF MISSION CHAPEL AT Los ANGELES
THE CITY HALL, SANTA MONICA, CALIF
MISSION CHAPEL AT LOS ANGELES, FROM THE PLAZA PARK
RESIDENCE IN LOS ANGELES, SHOWING INFLUENCE OF
MISSION STYLE OF ARCHITECTURE

The Old Franciscan Missions of California

CHAPTER I
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
In the popular mind there is a misapprehension that is as deep-seated as
it is ill-founded. It is that the California Missions are the only Missions
(except one or two in Arizona and a few in Texas) and that they are the
oldest in the country. This is entirely an error. A look at a few dates and
historic facts will soon correct this mistake.

Cortés had conquered Mexico; Pizarro was conqueror in Peru; Balboa
had discovered the South Sea (the Pacific Ocean) and all Spain was
aflame with gold-lust. Narvaez, in great pomp and ceremony, with six
hundred soldiers of fortune, many of them of good families and high
social station, in his five specially built vessels, sailed to gain fame,
fortune and the fountain of perpetual youth in what we now call
Florida.
Disaster, destruction, death--I had almost said entire
annihilation--followed him and scarce allowed his expedition to land,
ere it was swallowed up, so that had it not been for the escape of
Cabeza de Vaca, his treasurer, and a few others, there would have been
nothing left to suggest that the history of the start of the expedition was
any other than a myth. But De Vaca and his companions were saved,
only to fall, however, into the hands of the Indians. What an unhappy
fate! Was life to end thus? Were all the hopes, ambitions and glorious
dreams of De Vaca to terminate in a few years of bondage to degraded
savages?
Unthinkable, unbearable, unbelievable. De Vaca was a man of power, a
man of thought. He reasoned the matter out. Somewhere on the other
side of the great island--for the world then thought of the
newly-discovered America as a vast island--his people were to be
found. He would work his way to them and freedom. He communicated
his hope and his determination to his companions in captivity.
Henceforth, regardless of whether they were held as slaves by the
Indians, or worshiped as demigods,--makers of great medicine,--either
keeping them from their hearts' desire, they never once ceased in their
efforts to cross the country and reach the Spanish settlements on the
other side. For eight long years the weary march westward continued,
until, at length, the Spanish soldiers of the Viceroy of New Spain were
startled at seeing men who were almost skeletons, clad in the rudest
aboriginal garb, yet speaking the purest Castilian and demanding in the
tones of those used to obedience that they be taken to his noble and
magnificent Viceroyship. Amazement, incredulity, surprise, gave way
to congratulations and rejoicings, when it was found that these were the
human drift of the expedition of which not a whisper, not an echo, had

been heard for eight long years.
Then curiosity came rushing in like a flood. Had they seen anything on
the journey? Were there any cities, any peoples worth conquering;
especially did any of them have wealth in gold, silver and precious
stones like that harvested so easily by Cortés and Pizarro?
Cabeza didn't know really, but--, and his long pause and brief story of
seven cities that he had heard of, one or two days' journey to the north
of his track, fired the imagination of the Viceroy and his soldiers of
fortune. To be sure, though, they sent out a party of reconnaissance,
under the control of a good father of the Church, Fray Marcos de Nizza,
a friar of the Orders Minor, commonly known as a Franciscan, with
Stephen, a negro, one of the escaped party of Cabeza de Vaca, as a
guide, to spy out the land.
Fray Marcos penetrated as far as Zuni, and found there the seven cities,
wonderful and strange; though he did not enter them, as the