Mission Santa Inés

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Santa Ines circa 1900 Keystone-Mast.jpg The capilla (chapel) of Mission Santa Inés as it appeared around 1900.[1] The original bell structure (erected in 1817) collapsed in 1911 and was reconstructed out of reinforced concrete in 1948. The campanile has been compared by architectural historian Rexford Newcomb to the one that originally abutted the façade of Mission San Gabriel Arcángel.
HISTORY
Location: Solvang, California
Name as Founded: La Misión de Nuestra Santa Inés, Virgen y Mártir [2]
English Translation: The Mission of Saint Agnes of Rome, Virgin and Martyr
Patron Saint: Saint Agnes of Rome, Italy [3]
Nickname(s): "Hidden Gem of the Missions" [4]
"Mission of the Passes"
Founding Date: September 17, 1804 [5]
Founded By: Father Presidente Pedro Estévan Tápis [6]
Founding Order: Nineteenth [3]
Military District: Second [7]
Native Tribe(s):
Spanish Name(s):
Chumash
Inéseño
Primordial Place Name(s): 'Alahulapu [8]
SPIRITUAL RESULTS
Baptisms: 1,348 [9]
Marriages: 400 [9]
Burials: 1,227 [9]
Year of Neophyte Population Peak: 1815 [10][11]
Neophyte Population: 360 [10][11]
Neophyte Population in 1832: 768 [10][11]
DISPOSITION
Secularized: 1836 [3]
Returned to the Church: 1862 [3]
Caretaker: Roman Catholic Diocese of Los Angeles
Current Use: Parish Church / Museum
Coordinates: 34°35′26″N, 120°08′25″W
National Historic Landmark: NPS–99000630
California Historical Landmark: #305
Web Site: http://www.missionsantaines.org

Mission Santa Inés is a former religious outpost established by Spanish colonists on the west coast of North America in the present-day State of California. Founded on September 17, 1804 by Roman Catholics of the Franciscan Order, the settlement was the nineteenth in the twenty-one mission Alta California chain. The Mission site was chosen as a midway point between Mission Santa Barbara and Mission La Purísima Concepción, and was designed to relieve overcrowding at those two missions and to serve the natives living east of the Coast Range. The Mission was home to the first learning institution in Alta California.[6]

Precontact

History

On February 21, 1824 a soldier beat a young Chumash Indian and sparked a revolt. Some of the Indians went to get the Indians from the settlements at Santa Barbara and La Purísima to help in the fight. When the fighting was over, the Indians themselves put out the fire that had started at the Mission. Many of the Indians left to join other tribes in the mountains; only a few Indians remained at Santa Inés. The Danish town of Solvang was built up around the Mission proper in the early 1900s. It was through the efforts of Father Alexander Buckler in 1904 that reconstruction of the Mission was undertaken, though major restoration was not possible until 1947 when the Hearst Foundation donated money to pay the for project. The restoration continues to this day under the direction of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin Franciscan Fathers.

Notes

  1. (PD) Photo: Keystone-Mast
  2. Leffingwell, p. 71
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Krell, p. 286
  4. Ruscin, p. 163
  5. Yenne, p. 164
  6. 6.0 6.1 Ruscin, p. 196
  7. Forbes, p. 202
  8. Ruscin, p. 195
  9. 9.0 9.1 9.2 Krell, p. 315: as of December 31, 1832; information adapted from Engelhardt's Missions and Missionaries of California.
  10. 10.0 10.1 10.2 Krell, p. 315: Information adapted from Engelhardt's Missions and Missionaries of California.
  11. 11.0 11.1 11.2 Engelhardt 1920, pp. 300-301