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San Juan Capistrano is the oldest community in Orange County,
and it is the birthplace of many of its oldest traditions. In
the Los Rios Historic District of San Juan Capistrano, the "oldest
neighborhood in California," sits the Rios Adobe, the oldest
continually occupied home in the western United States.
San Juan Capistrano was founded by Padre Junipero Serra in 1776.
While the East Coast radicals were waging a guerrilla war against
the Mother Country, Serra was carrying out his mission of establishing
outposts of Spanish power into what was called Alta California.
Each mission was accompanied by a garrison of Spanish soldiers
for "protection," and this caused various geographical
locations to be named "presidio." The presidio
was the barracks housing soldiers, and presidios can be found
all up and down the California coast.
Father Serra's mission into California paralleled that of Lewis
and Clark to the Pacific Northwest, except that it was on the
behalf of the Spanish Crown, and it took place about a generation
before Lewis and Clark. The chain of missions founded by Serra,
starting with the mission at San Diego, actually laid the foundation
for what would eventually become the modern State of California.
Serra brought European and indigenous California cultures together
- not always gracefully - to create the first European-style
communities on the west coast of the continental United States.
The Great Stone Church that the Catholic Church built at Mission
San Juan Capistrano was the largest stone structure west of the
Mississippi River.
When the Spanish conquered the state's Native American people, the
Acjachemen nation was splintered into tribes corresponding with the Missions.
Ironically, many of the local native American tribes of California
have acquired names like "Juanenos," the local tribe
associated with Saddleback Valley, (who are related to the "Gabrielenos"
tribe), which is a Spanish word for "John," (and Gabrielenos
is a Spanish name for Gabriel), so that the very identity of these
tribes has been altered by European influences to the extent that
their names are European. There is historic evidence that the
Spanish regarded the native Californians as their slaves, and
used them as such, to the extent that the padres locked the Californians
in at night. This is the center of a huge controversy, as efforts
have been made to have Serra canonized. (The local church in
San Juan Capistrano has already anticipated the move, and has
acquired relics associated with the proposed Saint, and built
a huge cathedral at great expense). It is known that the entire
mission system was built on the backs of the natives, who upon
being worked into early graves, were "entitled" to be
buried on the grounds of the missions. It is also interesting
to note that the successor institution to the colonial-mission
system of California, the State of California, at one point paid
a bounty for native Californians, encouraging homicide in the guise of the "sport" of hunting
Indians; one year the State of California paid out one million
dollars!
When the Great Stone Church shattered and collapsed in a tremendous
earthquake in 1812, forty Juanenos attending the church service
perished. A few years later, in 1821, a new government took over,
and California became part of Mexico, when it became independent
of Spain. The Mexican governors privatized the missions, and
Mission San Juan Capistrano was sold to Don Juan Forster. Most
of the missions were stripped of their red tiles and wood beams
to build houses, and the unprotected adobe walls melted away in
the rain. Most of the original missions no longer exist. Mission
San Juan Capistrano did better than others because Don Juan Forster
actually lived in part of the mission, and kept his trade goods
stored in the Serra Chapel. The occupied portions that were protected
survived, while the north and west wings melted away, leaving
what can still be seen today, brick arches standing alone. After
California was conquered and annexed by the new continental power,
the United States, President Lincoln personally restored Mission
San Juan Capistrano to the possession of the Catholic Church.
Interestingly enough, despite the separation of church and state
that is said to exist, the Missions are the property of the State
of California, but the Chapel continues on as a fully operational,
sanctified church.
The Juaneno Californians, the local indigenous people, always
had a special relationship with the swallows, which the community
of San Juan Capistrano inherited. The swallows have apparently
migrated between Goya, Argentina and San Juan Capistrano, California,
since pre-historic times. Swallows prefer to build their nests
in cliffs, and in the early days of the mission, the mission ruins
were the only large structure in the valley, which suited the
birds well enough. Of course, with the massive developments that
now exist all around the old mission, the birds have many more
options, and the Spring arrival of the swallows has become less
spectacular through the years.
The original settlement that ultimately became the City of San
Juan Capistrano in the 1960s, is now Los Rios Street, in what
is now called the Los Rios Historic District. Not that long ago
the streets there were unpaved. The trees at the lot corners
were used to denote property boundaries, and many go as far back
as the beginning of European settlement in the area. There are
about 40 homes in the Los Rios Historic District which vary in
age from 50 to 204 years old. Most of the homes are still private
residences. The neighborhood housed the original builders of
the mission, and the workers on the mission ranch, for the economy
was centered around the mission, and dependent upon it. A second
wave of homes were built by European immigrants in the late 1800s
and early 1900s.
San Juan Capistrano was much larger than it is today, and San
Juan Capistrano played a more pivotal role in early California
society. The old River Street - part of the Ito Nursery land
- is an unimproved road 600 feet long and 25 feet wide that starts
at Los Rios Street, and goes west to Trabuco Creek. It used to
cross Trabuco Creek and extend all the way to Dana Point, approximately
four miles west. Early residents used this road to go to the
beach, and San Juan Bay, now the Dana Point Harbor. Cowhides
were carted from the processing area at the mission down this
same road to the clifftops overhanging the harbor, where they
were tossed down to be shipped to the East Coast markets. Today,
only 600 feet of the original road survives. (On maps today,
the bay outside of Dana Point is called Capistrano Bay;
when the mission dominated the area, it was apparently called
San Juan Bay; and the original indigenous people were said
to call it Stillwater Bay, describing its principal characteristics).
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