La Purisima Mission - November 3 2012


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La Purisima Mission State Historic Park -Village Days, Saturday, November 3rd

11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. (park opens from 9:00am to 5:00pm) We will meet at the Gift Shop at 10:30.

La Purisima Mission State Historic Park is offering the Village Day, or the Tule Village comes to life as visitors experience the blending of traditional Chumash (Indian) and Colonial Spanish life ways. Demonstrators help visitors learn a variety of skills such as grinding acorns, basket weaving, building a tule house, making soapstone beads or tule dolls, and playing Chumash games.

This field trip is in Lompoc, from a driving standpoint it is 3.5 hours. You may want to leave early from the AV or spend the evening prior in Lompoc (Pea Soup Andersen’s, for example). You may want to make it a date weekend.

Please sign up if you'd like to attend this trip.

Suggested Equipment

Consider shooting HDR or black and white (done in post). This place has history and may make for beautiful images in B&W. This event is where the village life comes to life. Consider capturing the people as they work, surrounded by smoke or food.

Tripod, wide-angle lens (20mm-28mm), telephoto lens (200mm-300mm), macro lens or close-focusing equipment if you wish to photograph the flowers, polarizing filter, try considering warming filter (81A, 81B or 81C).

Cost

Private Vehicles - $6.00 / Seniors (63 and over) - $5.00

Address

La Purisima Mission State Historic Park - 2295 Purisima Road, Lompoc, CA 93436

History Overview

Misión La Purísima Concepción De María Santísima (Mission of the Immaculate Conception of Most Holy Mary) was founded by Father Presidente Fermin de Lasuén on December 8, 1787 and was the 11th of 21 Franciscan Missions in California. During the Mission's early years, several thousand Chumash Indians were baptized into the Catholic Church; over 100 large and small adobe buildings were built; a water system was developed; crops and livestock were raised, and La Purisima grew and prospered.

The year 1812 in California was known as "El Año de los Temblores," or "The year of the Earthquakes."  A major earthquake struck La Purisima on December 21, 1812, destroying many of the Mission's structures. Aftershocks and drenching rains damaged La Purisima beyond repair.

Father Mariano Payeras, then in charge of the Mission, requested and was granted permission to rebuild four miles to the northwest in "La Cañada de los Berros," the Canyon of the Watercress. This new site had several advantages: a better water supply, a better climate, and a closer and safer access to El Camino Real, California's main travel route.

In 1834, the order to secularize California's Missions was enforced. Mission assets were to be civilly administered, landholdings divided up among the inhabitants, and the neophytes released from supervision of any type. In 1845, La Purisima Mission was sold to Juan Temple of Los Angeles for $1,000. It subsequently changed hands and uses a number of times prior to the close of the 19th century.

Buildings and other features of the Mission eventually collapsed from weather and long neglect. In 1933 when the property was given to public ownership by Union Oil Company, the Mission was a complete ruin. Preservation and reconstruction of the Mission complex began in 1934 through efforts of the County of Santa Barbara, the State of California, the National Park Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps. Under direction and labor from the latter two organizations, buildings and grounds were restored and furnished to appear as they had in 1820.

At present, the mission is within La Purisima Mission State Historic Park, an area of 1,928 acres - a small but most important portion of the original 300,000 acre mission property. Ten of the original buildings have been fully restored and furnished authentically; other structures have also been restored including the historic aqueduct and water system.

A five-acre garden shows native and domestic plants typical of a mission garden, while mission-type animals such as burros, horses, longhorn cattle, sheep and goats are displayed in a corral located in the main mission compound.

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