Mission San Juan Bautista - San Juan Bautista, CA - American Guide Series on Waymarking.com

Then: "The mission church, cruciform in shape, with a squat corner belfry, stands beside a low quadrangle with a sweeping red tile roof, facing the Plaza. The massive walls are of adobe up to the 2o-foot level and of brick above. In the interior, designed with unusual restraint, the murals have disappeared beneath coats of whitewash. On the floor are the original clay tiles, worn smooth. The ceiling is modern, but the heavy beams are those that Indian laborers set in place and bound with rawhide thongs. Beside the old high altar, fashioned of redwood and painted with vegetable dyes by Indian artisans, are chairs, candelabra, an altar rail and figures of saints brought from Mexico. The niched reredos in back was carved by Thomas Doak, California's first Yankee settler, in return for board and lodging. A little rear room contains two baptismal fonts carved
in 1797 from limestone. In other rooms are embroidered ceremonial robes, old books, tools, religious paraphernalia, and hand-inscribed music on parchment. Behind the mission, under gnarled olive trees that date from the mission's founding, more than 4,000 Indian victims of the white man's diseases lie buried in a big trench."
From: California : a guide to the Golden state (1939)

Now: The unique thing about Mission San Juan Bautista is how it has been preserved to teach those who live in the 20th Century what it was like when the Mission was founded. The many museums, buildings, artifacts, and original architecture in San Juan Bautista's Historic Plaza surrounding the Mission, allows us to learn how life now was so different for people living then but still give us a taste of history.

Book: California Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 384 Year Originally Published: 1939

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