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In the 18th century, the Pope’s desire to expand his empire by
converting the New World’s heathen Indians coincided with the Spanish
king’s desire to establish a permanent presence in his California
territory. So members of the Franciscan Order of monks originally led by
Father Junípero Serra— now a candidate for sainthood— founded
21 missions along the California coast. El Camino Real, the Royal
Road, linked them. Today California Route 1 and U.S. Route 101 follow
much of that road.
Appropriately, the Franciscans named their missions for saints. A number
of California cities, including
San Diego (“Saint Didacus”),
Santa Barbara,
San Juan Capistrano,
and San Luis Obispo (“Saint Louis, Bishop [of Toulouse]”), bear the name
of the missions around which they later developed. Serra’s successor
Fermin de Lasuén established Misión la Purísima
Concepción de María Santísima, the Mission of
the Immaculate Conception of the Most Holy Mary, in 1787. The eleventh
mission in the chain, it “served” the Chumash Indians.
An earthquake in 1812 completely destroyed the original mission, in what is now the city of Lompoc. Undeterred, the Franciscans rebuilt La Purisima at its current site, some two kilometers away. The Franciscans learned an important lesson about building for seismic safety, a major concern for architects in California ever since. The rebuilt mission was a long row rather than the traditional Spanish quadrangle. The revised architecture may have prevailed against further earthquakes, but it couldn’t save the mission.
In 1824, some of the
Chumash decided they didn’t entirely appreciate the Franciscans’
unsolicited gifts of salvation and civilization. In reaction
to the news of soldiers beating Indians at the nearby
Santa Inés Mission,
they took over La Purisima and held it for over a month before troops
arrived to retake it. The increasing exploitation of the Chumash as
slave labor for the Spanish and Mexican armies, along with the loss of
their culture to the Franciscans and the loss of their people to
smallpox and measles, surely contributed to this show of ingratitude.
That uprising was the beginning of La Purisima’s demise.
Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1822. Twelve years later,
the Mexican government “secularized” (i.e., appropriated) all the
mission properties and sent the Franciscans back to Spain. Without
maintenance the buildings deteriorated rapidly. When the land finally
reverted to the Church under American administration, crumbling ruins
were all that remained of the mission. The Church sold it all for $1,000
in 1854.
Beginning in 1934, members of the Civilian Conservation Corps— one
of the agencies the federal government set up to put unemployed people
to work during the Depression— reconstructed the mission buildings
using historical methods and materials. The effort included hundreds of
thousands of adobe bricks, and a similar number of roof and floor tiles,
all made by hand.
La Purisima is probably the most complete and authentic restoration of any of the California missions. The restoration depicts the mission in its heyday, circa 1822. The livestock pens fenced with wooden stakes contain the same varieties of cattle, sheep, and goats the Franciscans (or more likely, their Chumash “neophyte” laborers) raised. Authentic crops, along with medicinal and culinary herbs, grow in the gardens. The cemetery and bell tower adjacent to the church are painted ocher— it was Pepto-Bismol pink when I first visited the mission in 2001— to contrast with the whitewashed church. And the rooms in the adjacent dwellings and work rooms have historically accurate furnishings.
Volunteer docents don period clothes and turn the clock back to 1822
for elementary school students on field trips. (The “social studies”
curriculum for the California’s fourth graders has long focused on
California history, including when feasible a visit to the nearest
mission. Since that’s the only time it’s taught, the educational system
effectively ensures that adult Californians are completely ignorant of
state history. Those who moved to California after age nine missed it;
everyone else will surely have forgotten it before high school.) The
docents also offer special “Living History” events to the general public
several times a year.
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