Fourth California mission, and the site where the pobladores set forth to found LA in 1781

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 6, 1971

Founded in 1771, the fourth of the California missions, Mission San Gabriel Arcángel is a crucial one for Los Angeles history. This is where the founders of LA – the “pobladores” – set out from when they created the LA Pueblo in 1781. The current site is actually its second. For the first few years, Mission San Gabriel was located a few miles southeast, near the area now called Whittier Narrows. Around 1775 or 1776, a flood wiped out the old mission, and the padres moved to their present site.

As with all of the missions in California, Mission San Gabriel Arcángel existed in part to Christianize and assimilate the indigenous peoples that lived there before the Spanish missionaries arrived. It wouldn’t have thrived without the labor of the local Tongva/Kizh tribes. There were more Native American “neophytes” baptized here (some 25,000 before it was secularized in 1834) than at any other mission. Next to the mission’s historic chapel is “Campo Santo,” the oldest consecrated cemetery in Los Angeles. At its center stands a giant crucifix as a memorial to the 6000 native people buried on the grounds.

The San Gabriel Mission was the site of an attempted rebellion against the missionaries in 1785, led by the Kizh medicine woman Toypurina, along with neophyte Nicolás José and others. The rebels intended to destroy the mission in retaliation for the years of deracination, violence and forced labor perpetrated against the indigenous peoples; most recently, the San Gabriel missionaries had decreed that neophytes could no longer participate in traditional native dances. Toypurina and co. gathered supporters from a number of surrounding settlements. But the plan was foiled when someone informed the Spanish military garrison protecting the mission. Toypurina and José were publicly flogged and exiled. In recent years, historians have cast Toypurina as a freedom fighter; she’s become a symbol of anti-colonialism in LA, depicted in murals and other public art.

Mission San Gabriel has survived earthquakes, floods and fires throughout its history. When I first visited in fall of 2021, it was closed to the public, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and an arson that destroyed the roof and interior of its 220-year-old chapel the prior year. As of July 1, 2023, the Mission is back open to visitors. The chapel has been fully restored, with a new hand-milled roof. Despite the devastation, much of the building’s integrity remains intact. The original reredos, a gift from King Carlos III of Spain, stands behind the altar. Just off the side is the original baptistry, with a copper baptismal font where the Franciscan priests would baptize indigenous children beginning in the 1770s. On the northeast corner of the chapel you can still see the ruins of the original bell tower, which collapsed in an 1812 earthquake. And just west of the chapel is the “new” bell tower, important enough as a visual marker that the City of San Gabriel has adopted it as a logo.

While the circumstances behind the Mission’s 2020 closure were awful, the three years’ break was a blessing in disguise, as it gave the Mission’s stewards the time to reimagine the onsite museum. Curator Steven Hackel worked with the Archdiocese of LA and art history professor Yve Chavez (of the Gabrielino Tongva San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians) to tell the complex story of this place through texts, artifacts and interactive exhibits. I don’t envy their job. It’s not easy to balance the historical and religious importance of the Mission San Gabriel with its irrevocable impact on the indigenous people who were displaced, Christianized and, some argue, enslaved by the Spanish monks here.

The curators have done a sensitive job of acknowledging the painful history of this place head on and letting us hear from multiple perspectives, often in conflict. We see a reproduction of a letter from Junipero Serra, praising the work being done at the Mission. We also hear a modern recording of the words of Toypurina, transcribed from her trial in 1785. You can listen to audio excerpts of the Gabrielino language; in a small room across from the museum you can watch a short interview with Chief Red Blood of the Gabrielino Tongva San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians, talking about how his native and Catholic sides have informed his identity.

The caretakers of Mission San Gabriel have taken pains to preserve a sense of what it was like to live there day-to-day. You can see fountains that were fed by an 18th century aqueduct, cisterns used for boiling tallow to make candles and soaps, and tannery vats used to treat cowhides. All reminders of the commercial enterprises that once kept the Mission afloat. My favorite echo of the past is the massive tangle of grapevines that cover a long network of trellises in the courtyard and Campo Santo. The vine is a descendant of plantings made by Junipero Serra, the supervisor of the entire mission system. 250 years after it was first planted, this vine continues to bear fruit. Winemakers have even resumed harvesting the grapes to test them out in new bottles.

This mission was also the starting point for the 2021 Great LA Walk, which I participated in with friends and hundreds of fellow Angelenos. We walked the same route as the pobladores, all the way to Los Angeles Plaza Park (see post #50) which houses many of the city’s earliest buildings. It was incredible to retrace history with my own steps.

Over 250 years after its founding, Mission San Gabriel is still a thriving religious and social center. Sunday mass is held at the more modern, second chapel on the north side of the campus. I encountered a wedding when I was there in 2021, and vendors were selling sopes and agua fresca when I returned in 2023. The larger cemetery is decorated with fresh cut flowers, and the gift shop is full of religious objects and historic memorabilia. The San Gabriel Mission’s long, difficult history continues to expand.

Sources & Recommended Reading

+ Gabrieleno Tongva Band of Mission Indians website

+ John, Maria: “Toypurina: A Legend Etched in the Landscape of Los Angeles” (KCET, May 15, 2014)

+ Mission San Gabriel @ NRHP website

+ Mission San Gabriel official website

+ Read about the UC system’s Critical Mission Studies program

+ Snyder, Garrett: “Wine from the ‘Mother Vine’: A trio of L.A. winemakers are harvesting historic grapes at San Gabriel Mission” (Los Angeles Times, October 9, 2020)

+ Vankin, Deborah: “A fire tore through Mission San Gabriel. Its museum now tells a more inclusive story” (Los Angeles Times, June 28, 2023)