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Mission Santa Barbara
The tenth mission to be established by the padres, Mission Santa Barbara was part of Junípero Serra’s dream of three channel missions bridging the gap between San Gabriel and San Luis Obispo. Although Father Serra greatly anticipated and planned for the Mission, the actual founding of it was upheld by Governor Neve, who wanted the presidio to be completed first. A month after getting word from a new Governor that the Mission could be founded, Serra died, leaving the actual task of founding the Mission to be carried out by his successor: Father Fermín Francisco de Lasuén.
Named for St. Barbara, the mission site was chosen by Lasuén for it’s close proximity to water, and was called Tanayan and El Pedregoso by the Indians and Spaniards respectively, both names meaning: "Rocky Mound". Formally dedicated on December 16th 1786, Mission Santa Barbara’s third church was finished in 1794, and on the surrounding grounds were built a tannery, a pottery, warehouses, and 250 plastered and whitewashed Indian houses. A water system was constructed that was so well built that parts of it are still being used by the water company of the City of Santa Barbara. Containing a network of dams, reservoirs, and aqueducts, the elaborate system supplied water to the mission’s gardens, and orchards, as well as to a beautiful Moorish fountain was constructed in 1808, where the overflow runs into a stone laundry basin that was used by the inhabitants.
The earthquake of 1812 nearly destroyed the Mission’s third church, which was repaired and used for years while a new stone church was built around it. The new stone church was finished in September of 1820 after five years of work, and is basically what still stands today. The façade and much of the interior detail was designed by Father Antonio Ripoll, who got his inspiration from a Spanish translation of "The Six Books of Architecture", which was composed by Vitruvius Polion in 27 B.C. A second tower was added in 1831, and rebuilt in 1833 after it fell in 1832. At the time of its construction in the Santa Barbara foothills, the Mission was prominently visible from the shoreline as a graceful, well situated symbol of the Mission system and Spanish rule of the region.
After being secularized in 1834, the Mission was sold in 1846, and was returned to the church in 1865. In 1925, the Mission’s towers and facade, as well as a wing of it’s living quarters were damaged by another earthquake, with the restoration costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. In 1950, chemical disintegration caused cracks to appear again in the facade, which made it necessary for it to be dismantled and rebuilt again, this time with concrete reinforced with steel. With it’s elaborate water system, two similar towers, and combination of Roman and simple mission style, Mission Santa Barbara is often called the Queen of the Missions, and is located at the end of Laguna St. in the City of Santa Barbara.
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