Mission San Fernando Rey de España

Another mission bearing the name San Fernando Rey de España is the Misión San Fernando Rey de España de Velicatá in Baja California.

Mission San Fernando Rey de España

Mission San Fernando Rey de España, circa 1910.
Location	15151 San Fernando Mission Blvd. Los Angeles, California
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
Coordinates	34°16′23.16″N 118°27′40.32″W / 34.2731°N 118.4612°W / 34.2731; -118.4612
Date added to the NRHP	1999 (#71001076)
California Historical Landmark	#157

Mission San Fernando Rey de España was founded on "The Feast of the Birth of Mary" (September 8), 1797. The settlement is located on the former Encino Rancho in the Mission Hills community of northern Los Angeles, near the site of the first gold discovery in Alta California.^[5]

History

San Fernando Mission Church Interior

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).^[9]

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: it was a 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. In 1971, a large 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.

Mission industries

An exterior view of the Convento

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. Prior to the establishment of the missions, the native peoples knew only how to utilize bone, seashells, Bush, and wood for building, tool making, weapons, and so forth. The missionaries discovered that the Indians, who regarded labor as degrading to the masculine sex, had to be taught industry in order to learn how to be self-supportive. The result was the establishment of a great manual training school that comprised agriculture, the mechanical arts, and the raising and care of livestock. Everything consumed and otherwise utilized by the natives was produced at the missions under the supervision of the padres; thus, the neophytes not only supported themselves, but after 1811 sustained the entire military and civil government of California.^[10]

Mission bells

Mission San Fernando Postcard, circa 1900

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 bells.

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.

In popular culture

• 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.

See also

New Spain portal

• Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando
• USNS Mission San Fernando (AO-122) — a Mission Buenaventura Class fleet oiler built during World War II.
• Convento Building (Mission San Fernando)
• List of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments in the San Fernando Valley
• History of the San Fernando Valley to 1915

Notes

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. ^ Young, p. 39
10. ^ Engelhardt 1922, p. 211

References

A statue of Father Junípero Serra and a native child at Mission San Fernando.

• 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 0-759-10872-2. 
• 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

• Mass Times
• Elevation & Site Layout sketches of the Mission proper
• California Missions: Mission San Fernando Rey de España - history and information
• Photos
• Andrés Pico Adobe
• Early photographs, sketches, land surveys of Mission San Fernando Rey de España, via Calisphere, California Digital Library
• Listing, photographs, and drawings of church at the Historic American Buildings Survey
• Listing and photographs of fountains at the Historic American Buildings Survey
• Listing, photographs, and drawings of monastery at the Historic American Buildings Survey

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

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

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  The fountain opposite San Fernando Mission Road.

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  The present-day Mission façade.