Glenda J. Jackson - Ventura

Mission San Buenaventura, named for St. Bonaventura, was originally to be the third mission in a series of 21 California missions. But by the time it was founded on March 31, 1782, it became the ninth. The current church on Main Street was completed in 1809 but damaged by an earthquake in 1812. Repair and renovations were completed in 1815 and included the large buttresses on the front of the building. The Arnaz family is pictured on the steps in the mid-1860s.

On November 24, 1713, Fray Junipero Serra was born as Miguel Jose in Petra on the Island of Majorca. He took the name Junipero upon his Franciscan confirmation. In 1749, he went to Mexico City, and in 1768, he accompanied Gaspar de Portola on an expedition into Upper California. In 1769, he founded Mission San Diego. While in Mexico, Father Serra injured his leg, and by the time he had walked to San Buenaventura, it had become ulcerated and he was in ill health. Arriving in San Buenaventura, a simple enramada of boughs and a small wooden cross was erected to celebrate mass. The exact location is unknown but is thought to have been near the ocean not from the San Miguel Chapel site on Thompson Boulevard. Father Serra stayed at the mission site for only three weeks before he headed to Santa Barbara. On August 28, 1784, he died at Mission San Carlos.

A large earthquake hit the coast near Santa Barbara on December 12, 1812, and severely damaged the new mission. It also created a 50-foot-tall tidal wave that reached halfway up present-day California Street. Aftershocks rocked the area for months, and the padres and Chumash Indians abandoned the mission and set up temporary quarters near Casitas Pass (Highway 33 and Caada Larga Road), close to the Canet Ranch. The Santa Gertrudis Chapel was established here between 1804 and 1808, with small houses built for the neophyteshence the name Casitas, or small houses in Spanish. Mass was held there for several months until the aftershocks and fear of tidal waves subsided. The site of the Santa Gertrudis Chapel lies beneath Highway 33. (Courtesy John Burgman.)

This 1880s image shows one of the three quadrangles that enclosed the gardens and fountains at the San Buenaventura Mission. In the foreground, barely visible beyond the fence, are the wine and olive presses. Records from 1825 show the mission having 37,000 head of cattle, 600 head of horses, 200 yoke of working oxen, 500 mules, 30,000 sheep, and 200 goats. The orchard produced pears, apples, peaches, figs, apricots, nectarines, and dates. English walnut trees also stood in the orchard, and some of the first oranges in California were grown here. Grapes were plentiful and sweet and were made into wine or dried as a kind of raisin. The mission grounds extended from Main Street south to Meta Street (Thompson Boulevard) and from Ventura Avenue to just west of Palm Street.