Mission San Fernando Rey de España

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This article is about the mission in present-day California. For the mission in Baja California, see Misión San Fernando Rey de España de Velicatá.
Mission San Fernando Rey de España
Mission San Fernando Rey de España
Mission San Fernando Rey de España, circa 1910.
Mission San Fernando Rey de España is located in San Fernando Valley
Location in the San Fernando Valley
Location 15151 San Fernando Mission Blvd.
Mission Hills, Los Angeles, California 91345
Coordinates 34°16′23″N 118°27′40″W / 34.2731°N 118.4612°W / 34.2731; -118.4612Coordinates: 34°16′23″N 118°27′40″W / 34.2731°N 118.4612°W / 34.2731; -118.4612
Name as founded La Misión del Señor Fernando, Rey de España [1]
English translation The Mission of Saint Ferdinand, King of Spain
Patron Ferdinand III of Castile[2]
Nickname(s) "Mission of the Valley" [3]
Founding date September 8, 1797 [4]
Founding priest(s) Father Fermín Lasuén [5]
Founding Order Seventeenth[2]
Military district Second[6]
Native tribe(s)
Spanish name(s)		 Tataviam, Tongva
Fernandeno, Gabrielińo
Native place name(s) 'Achooykomenga, Pasheeknga [7]
Baptisms 2,784[8]
Marriages 827[8]
Burials 1,983[8]
Secularized 1834 (Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando)[2]
Returned to the Church 1861[2]
Governing body Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles
Current use Chapel-of-ease / Museum
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
NRHP designation date 1999
NRHP # #71001076
California Historical Landmark
CHISL # #157
Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument
LAHCM # 23[9]

Mission San Fernando Rey de España is a Spanish mission in the Mission Hills district of Los Angeles, California. The mission was founded on September 8, 1797 near the site of the first gold discovery in Alta California,[5] and was the seventeenth of the Spanish missions established in present-day California. Named for Saint Ferdinand, the mission is the namesake of the nearby city of San Fernando and the San Fernando Valley.

The mission was secularized in 1834 and returned to the Catholic Church in 1861; it became a working church in 1920. Today the mission grounds function as a museum; the church is a chapel of ease of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Contents

History [edit]

See also: History of the San Fernando Valley
An exterior view of the Convento

Mission San Fernando Rey de España was founded on September 8, 1797 by Father Fermín Lasuén, making it the fourth mission site he had established in as many months. The prime location the padre selected, located along the principal highway leading to the Pueblo de Los Angeles, had been occupied by Francisco Reyes (then Los Angeles' mayor). However, after brief negotiations construction of the first buildings was soon underway (Mission records list Reyes as godfather to the first infant baptized at San Fernando).[10]

Mission industries [edit]

The goal of the missions was, above all, to become self-sufficient in relatively short order. Farming, therefore, was the most important industry of any mission. The Spanish did not understand the culture of the local natives, and in any case they intended that the natives conform to the plans of the mission, that they be taught about European agricultural practices, the mechanical arts, and the raising and care of livestock. By 1811, the natives produced all of the food at the missions, and sustained the military and civil government of California.[11]

Mission bells [edit]

Bells were vitally important to daily life at any mission. The bells were rung at mealtimes, to call the Mission residents to work and to religious services, during births and funerals, to signal the approach of a ship or returning missionary, and at other times; novices were instructed in the intricate rituals associated with the ringing the mission bell.

A hundred-pound bell was unearthed in an orange grove near the Mission in 1920. It carried the following inscription (translated from Russian): "In the Year 1796, in the month of January, this bell was cast on the Island of Kodiak by the blessing of Archimandrite Joaseph, during the sojourn of Alexsandr Baranov." It is not known how this Russian Orthodox artifact from Kodiak, Alaska made its way to a Catholic mission in Southern California.

Later History [edit]

In 1845, Governor Pío Pico declared the Mission buildings for sale and, in 1846, made Mission San Fernando Rey de España his headquarters as Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando. The Mission was utilized in a number of ways during the late 19th century: north of the mission was the site of Lopez Station for the Butterfield Stage Lines; it served as a warehouse for the Porter Land and Water Company; and in 1896, the quadrangle was used as a hog farm. San Fernando's church became a working church again in 1923 when the Oblate priests arrived. Many attempts were made to restore the old Mission from the early 20th century, but it was not until the Hearst Foundation gave a large gift of money in the 1940s, that the Mission was finally restored. Later, the 1971 San Fernando earthquake damaged the church, which had to be completely rebuilt. The repairs were completed in 1974. It continues to be very well cared for and is still used as a chapel-of-ease. In 2003 comedian Bob Hope was interred in the Bob Hope Memorial Gardens.

In popular culture [edit]

  • The sanctuary interior was used for Dragnet 1969's episode 15, "The Christmas Story".
  • The tour interior and courtyard scenes of the Alamo in Pee-wee's Big Adventure were shot here in 1985.


  • A view looking down an exterior corridor at Mission San Fernando Rey de España, a common architectural feature of the Spanish Missions.

  • A view of the same location as at left, circa 1900.

  • The fountain opposite San Fernando Mission Road.

  • The present-day Mission façade.

  • San Fernando Mission Church Interior.

  • thumb|upright|left|A statue of Father Junípero Serra and a native child at Mission San Fernando.

  • thumb|upright|Mission San Fernando Postcard, circa 1900

  • right|thumb|upright|Lopez Station in the 1860s.

See also [edit]

Portal icon New Spain portal

Notes [edit]

  1. ^ Leffingwell, p. 49
  2. ^ a b c d Krell, p. 263
  3. ^ Ruscin, p. 137
  4. ^ Yenne, p. 148
  5. ^ a b Ruscin, p. 196
  6. ^ Forbes, p. 202
  7. ^ Ruscin, p. 195
  8. ^ a b c Krell, p. 315: as of December 31, 1832; information adapted from Engelhardt's Missions and Missionaries of California.
  9. ^ Los Angeles Department of City Planning (September 7, 2007). "Historic - Cultural Monuments (HCM) Listing: City Declared Monuments" (PDF format; requires Adobe Reader). City of Los Angeles. Retrieved May 29, 2008. 
  10. ^ Young, p. 39
  11. ^ Engelhardt 1922, p. 211

References [edit]

  • Engelhardt, Zephyrin, O.F.M. (1922). San Juan Capistrano Mission. Standard Printing Co., Los Angeles, CA. 
  • Forbes, Alexander (1839). California: A History of Upper and Lower California. Smith, Elder and Co., Cornhill, London. 
  • Fedorova, Svetlana G., trans. & ed. by Richard A. Pierce and Alton S. Donnelly (1973). The Russian Population in Alaska and California: Late 18th Century - 1867. Limestone Press, Kingston, Ontario. ISBN 0-919642-53-5. 
  • Jones, Terry L. and Kathryn A. Klar (eds.) (2007). California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture, and Complexity. Altimira Press, Landham, MD. ISBN 0-7591-0872-2. 
  • Krell, Dorothy (ed.) (1979). The California Missions: A Pictorial History. Sunset Publishing Corporation, Menlo Park, CA. ISBN 0-376-05172-8. 
  • Paddison, Joshua (ed.) (1999). A World Transformed: Firsthand Accounts of California Before the Gold Rush. Heyday Books, Berkeley, CA. ISBN 1-890771-13-9. 
  • Ruscin, Terry (1999). Mission Memoirs. Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, CA. ISBN 0-932653-30-8. 
  • Wright, R. (1950). California's Missions. Hubert A. and Martha H. Lowman, Arroyo Grande, CA. 
  • Yenne, Bill (2004). The Missions of California. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA. ISBN 1-59223-319-8. 
  • Young, S., and Levick, M. (1988). The Missions of California. Chronicle Books LLC, San Francisco, CA. ISBN 0-8118-3694-0. 

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mission San Fernando Rey de España

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