Preserving the past...
County's oldest community
Gerald J. Miller
Juan Capistrano is Orange County's oldest
community. It's the birthplace of Orange
County and home to its oldest traditions.
It has its swallows, history, legends,
storybook heroes, and beautiful archeological
monuments. Most of that history is wrapped
up and epitomized by our living historic
landmarks, the most beautiful and best
known of the California
missions, old Mission
San Juan Capistrano-our mission! It
belongs to all of us. It's our inheritance.
some would rather be in Philadelphia with
its Liberty Bell, thinking of Thomas Jefferson,
John Hancock, and others signing the Declaration
of Independence in 1776. But at the same
time, Padre Junipero Serra was founding
our mission at San Juan Capistrano on
the sunny side of our American continent.
was bringing together European and indigenous
Indian cultures which formed the beginning
rich multi-cultural heritage. That bi-cultural
partnership not only built a large adobe
mission, but constructed a stone church
which was 180 feet long, five stories
high at the sanctuary and was topped with
seven stone domes and a bell tower. It
was the largest stone structure west of
the Mississippi. The stone church started
as a vision in 1797. Spanish padres and
the proud Juaneno Mission Indians wanted
to build the most magnificent structure
among all the missions. They wanted an
edifice so majestic and so beautiful that
even God would be impressed. History tells
us they succeeded. The Great Stone Church,
as it came to be called, was a man-made,
heaven inspired masterpiece.
shattered and collapsed in a tremendous
earthquake in 1812. Forty Juanenos attending
service died in the disaster. They are
there still, buried in a little cemetery
behind the church. Shattered dreams, shattered
visions, but the majestic ruins still
stand at the corner of the mission in
silent testament to those dreams and the
courage of those bygone people who dared
to dream them.
few years thereafter, in 1821, time ran
out for California's old Spanish missions.
A new government took over and California
became a part of Mexico. The Mexican governors
privatized the missions, with Mission
San Juan Capistrano being sold to Don
Juan Forster. Most missions were stripped
of their tiles and wood beams to build
houses and the unprotected adobe walls
melted away in the rains fo time. Most
of the original missions no longer existed.
Mission San Juan fared a little better
because Don Juan Forster actually lived
in part of the mission and kept his trade
goods stored in Serra Chapel. Thus, the
occupied part of the adobe mission was
protected from the elements; but the north
and west wings melted away, leaving the
brick arches standing alone like naked
manneuins in the window of a store.
few times in the mission's history-1895,
under Los Angeles Times editor Charles
Lummis, and the Landmarks Club (1910-1930),
under the great restorer, Msgr. St. John
O'Sullivan-attempts were made to preserve
the mission's picturesque ruins. In the
last five years, under the leadership
of Msgr. Paul Martin, $3 million was borrowed
to do seismic safety work as an alternative
to closing the mission down because it
didn't meet state mandated codes. Art exhibitions, concerts
and special event programs were intstituted
at the mission, with all proceeds going
to a newly created preservation fund.
as a result of those and other fund raising
activities, the $3 million debt has been
repaid for the seismic work on the adobe
buildings, $1.8 million has been raised
and spent to piece together the crumbling
ruins of the Great Stone Church, and a
grant in-kind from the builders' Industry
Association will enable the preserving
of the 1791 Spanish soldiers' barracks.
Countless volunteers have helped resurface
the barrack's walls with low-tech "mudslinging",
but now seismic stabilization and a new
tile roof will preserve that important
edifice for future generations.
our inheritance has taken a lot of work
and a lot of money from many people and
sources. At this point, it's all been
private source donations-the hard way.
The mission has not received financing
from any church, nor any governmental
agency. Because the importance of the
mission transcends this region to national
and international recognition, efforts
are being made to get public funds to
supplement the private funds for preservation.
is still much preservation work to be done before we
can pass our historic treasure on to future
to the help of the preservationists, the
whispers will keep echoing for centuries