Mission San Miguel Arcángel
Father Fermin Lasuén founded Mission San Miguel Arcángel, the 16th colonial mission in California, on July 25, 1797. A temporary church was built in 1797, but was lost to fire in 1806. Preparation for a new adobe church began soon thereafter. Tiles and adobe blocks were made and stored for ten years before the stone foundation of the church was laid in 1816 and the church was completed in 1818. Mission lands were sold off after the Mexican secularization act of 1833 and the buildings declined. In 1859 the U.S. government returned the mission to the Catholic Church, but it wasn’t reactivated until 1878. Structural damage from the M6.5 San Simeon earthquake on December 22, 2003, closed the mission. It reopened in October 2009 following extensive renovations. The mission is a National Historic Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
San Miguel, San Luis Obispo County
Photographer: John Bare