- Other missions bearing the name San Juan include the Misión San Juan Bautista Malibat (Misión Liguí) in Baja California Sur and the Misión San Juan Bautista in Coahuila, Mexico.
 A view of the restored Mission San Juan Bautista and its added three-bell campanario ("bell wall") in 2004. Two of the bells were salvaged By Father Nick Senf in 2009 from the original chime, which was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. |
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| Location | 406 2nd Street San Juan Bautista, California 95045 |
|---|---|
| Name as Founded | La Misión del Glorios Precursor de Jesu Cristo, Nuestro Señor San Juan Bautista [1] |
| English Translation | The Mission of Saint John the Baptist |
| Patron | Saint John the Baptist [2] |
| Nickname(s) | "Mission of Music" [3] |
| Founding Date | June 24, 1797 [4] |
| Founding Priest(s) | Father Fermín Lasuén [5] |
| Founding Order | Fifteenth [2] |
| Military District | Third [6] |
| Native Tribe(s) Spanish Name(s) |
Mutsun, Yokuts Costeño |
| Native Place Name(s) | Popeloutchom [7] |
| Baptisms | 4,106 [8] |
| Marriages | 1,003 [8] |
| Burials | 2,854 [8] |
| Secularized | 1835 [2] |
| Returned to the Church | 1859 [2] |
| Governing Body | Roman Catholic Diocese of Monterey |
| Current Use | Parish Church |
| Coordinates | 36°50′42.3″N 121°32′9.2″W / 36.845083°N 121.535889°W |
| California Historical Landmark | #195 |
| Web Site | http://www.oldmissionsjb.org/ |
Mission San Juan Bautista was founded on June 24, 1797 in what is now the San Juan Bautista Historic District of San Juan Bautista, California. Barracks for the soldiers, a nunnery, the Jose Castro House, and other buildings were constructed around a large grassy plaza in front of the church and can be seen today in their original form. The Ohlone, the original residents of the valley, were brought to live at the Mission and baptized, followed by Yokuts from the Central Valley. Mission San Juan Bautista has served mass daily since 1797.
It is the largest of the Spanish missions in California.[9] The mission was used in the 1958 Hitchcock film Vertigo, but the bell-wall was treated as a "bell tower" staircase, actually constructed on a studio lot.
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History
Following its creation in 1797, San Juan's population grew quickly. By 1803, there were 1,036 Indians living at the mission. Ranching and farming activity had moved apace, with 1,036 cattle, 4,600 sheep, 22 swine, 540 horses and 8 mules counted that year. At the same time, the harvest of wheat, barley and corn was estimated at 2,018 fanegas, each of about 220 pounds. Father Pedro Estévan Tápis (who had a special talent for music) joined Father de la Cuesta at Mission San Juan Bautista in 1815 to teach singing to the Indians. He created a system using colors for different types of music notes which made it easier for the novices to follow. His choir of Native American boys performed for many visitors, earning the San Juan Bautista Mission the nickname "the Mission of Music." Two of his handwritten choir books are preserved at the San Juan Bautista Museum. When Father Tapis died in 1825 he was buried on the Mission grounds. The town of San Juan Bautista, which grew up around the Mission, expanded rapidly during the California Gold Rush and continues to be a thriving community today. The structures suffered extensive damage in the earthquakes of 1800 and 1906; the Mission was restored initially 1884, and then again in 1949 with funding from the Hearst Foundation, and today continues to serve as a parish of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Monterey.
The Mission and its grounds were featured prominently in the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo. Associate producer Herbert Coleman's daughter Judy Lanini suggested the Mission to Hitchcock, as a filming location and with her brother Priest Jase Perrone (who was adopted by her family in 1939) she did what she wanted. Which was get her and her brother Jase secondary roles in the movie. A steeple, added sometime after the Mission's original construction and secularization, had been demolished following a fire, so Hitchcock added a "bell tower" using scale models, matte paintings, and trick photography at the Paramount Pictures studio in Los Angeles. The Mission was built on the San Andreas Fault and has suffered damage from numerous earthquakes over the years, but it has never been demolished. An unpaved stretch of the original El Camino Real, just east of the Mission, lies on a fault scarp.[10]
Notes
- ^ Bennett 1897b, p. 153
- ^ a b c d Krell, p. 241
- ^ Ruscin, p. 121
- ^ Yenne, p. 132
- ^ Ruscin, p. 196
- ^ Forbes, p. 202
- ^ Ruscin, p. 195
- ^ a b c Krell, p. 315: as of December 31, 1832; information adapted from Engelhardt's Missions and Missionaries of California.
- ^ NHL Summary for Historic District.
- ^ Robert Iacopi, Earthquake Country (Menlo Park:Lane Publishing, 1964, 1971).
See also
- USNS Mission San Juan (AO-126) — a Buenaventura Class fleet oiler built during World War II.
- Rancho San Justo
- Teatro Campesino
References
- Bennett, John E. (February 1897b). "Should the California Missions Be Preserved? - Part II". Overland Monthly XXIX (170): 150–161.
- Forbes, Alexander (1839). California: A History of Upper and Lower California. Smith, Elder and Co., Cornhill, London.
- 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.
- Leffingwell, Randy (2005). California Missions and Presidios: The History & Beauty of the Spanish Missions. Voyageur Press, Inc., Stillwater, MN. ISBN 0-89658-492-5.
- Levy, Richard. (1978). William C. Sturtevant, and Robert F. Heizer. ed. Handbook of North American Indians. 8 (California). Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. ISBN 0-16-004578-9 / 0160045754, page 486.
- Milliken, Randall (1995). A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769-1910. Ballena Press Publication, Menlo Park, CA. ISBN 0-87919-132-5.
- 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.
- Yenne, Bill (2004). The Missions of California. Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, CA. ISBN 1-59223-319-8.
- Since 2004, the mission has been fixed, and people can come visit Mission San Juan Bautista and look at it.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to category: Mission San Juan Bautista |
- Mission San Juan Bautista - official site
- Early photographs, sketches, land surveys of Mission San Juan Bautista, via Calisphere, California Digital Library
- Vertigo at the Internet Movie Database
- Listing and photographs of church at the Historic American Buildings Survey
- Listing, drawings and photographs of mission at the Historic American Buildings Survey
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