About San Juan Bautista
San Juan Bautista is located in San Benito County, California. The city was named after the Mission San Juan Bautista. This is Spanish for Saint John the Baptist.
The mission was founded in the late spring of 1797.
The city is 17 miles north of Salinas, California. It sits in the middle of the San Juan Valley in northern California. San Juan Bautista is built directly on top of the San Andreas fault.
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Harvesting of Souls
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Spanish Corporal Juan Ballesteros and his five men arrived in the spring of 1797. They built a chapel, houses for themselves and the padres and a granary (a silo for storing grain).
Father Lasuen arrived on June 24, 1797, and dedicated the mission. About two weeks later, a 10-year-old Native American was baptized at the mission. Corporal Ballesteros sponsored him. A few weeks later, a son of Corporal Ballesteros was baptized. This was the first white baptism recorded at the mission.
In September of 1797, the first funeral took place at the mission. Corporal Ballesteros' infant son was buried there.
Earthquake Country
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In October 1798, the first of multiple earthquakes hit the mission. Sometimes there were as many as six earthquakes a day. The mission walls were split from top to bottom.
In October of 1800, an earthquake destroyed the mission.
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The Mission Rebuilt
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Construction to rebuild the mission began in 1803. Father Arroyo de la Cuesta, who took it over 1808, envisioned a large mission that would hold 1,000 churchgoers. The new mission was 72 feet by 188 feet. The walls were three feet thick and the interior of the mission had three aisles.
Father Arroyo had the church's arches filled in to help make the mission earthquake proof. This also provided the mission with two large rooms.
The new mission was completed on June 23, 1812.
The Interior
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Thomas Doak, a sailor from Boston, jumped ship in Monterey, California and came to the mission in 1820. In exchange for room and board, Doak laid tiles on the mission floors and built and decorated the reredos behind the altar.
Native Americans sculpted a baptismal from a huge block of native sandstone.
The Secularization of the Mission
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After Mexico won its independence from Spain it could not afford to keep the mission running as Spain once did. In 1834, the Mexican government decided to end the mission system and sell the all the lands.
The Mexican government offered to sell the land to the Native Americans, but they could not come up with the purchase price. The land was divided into smaller rancheros and sold to Mexican citizens.
Nearly 30 years later, the missions were returned to the Catholic Church. This happened in 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln signed an act that declared that all of the 21 missions in the California mission chain would be become the property of the Catholic Church.
San Francisco Earthquake
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On April 18, 1906, the San Francisco earthquake destroyed most of the mission and it was subsequently abandoned.
The San Bautista Historical Park was established in 1935. The Hearst Foundation financed the restoration of the mission and it was restored to its original form in 1949.
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