Mission San Miguel

Our California Mission Tour is currently being developed and will be ready soon.

The story of the Old Missions of California is relatively new. The interest in the ancient and dilapidated buildings and their history increases with each year. Today, a thousand visit them where ten saw them twenty years ago, and twenty years hence, hundreds of thousands will stand in their sacred precincts, and unconsciously absorb beautiful and unselfish lessons of life as they hear some part of their history recited. It is well that this is so. A materially inclined nation needs to save every unselfish element in its history to prevent its going to utter destruction. --George Wharton James, 1913 Project Gutenberg

STATEMENT FROM CALIFORNIA MISSIONS FOUNDATION

Imagine if you can, England without the tower of London, Egypt without the Pyramids, China minus its Great Wall. It's unimaginable, since our impressions of these places are typically intertwined with those historic sites. California without its missions is equally unthinkable. Since the Spanish friars and native peoples joined together in the building of these settlements, this land we call California has been shaped and influenced by what they accomplished in that most ambitious undertaking. From the vineyards of Sonoma to the ranches of Santa Barbara to the adobe arcades and red tile roofs of San Diego, the missions have left their mark on who we are and what we have become. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. once wrote, "When I want to understand what is happening today or try to decide what will happen tomorrow, I look back." --California Missions Foundation