Mission San Miguel

By Miguel Colores

Who and when it was founded.

Mission San Miguel named
for the Archangel Saint
Michael was founded by
Franciscan Father Fermin
Francisco de Lasuen in 1797,
and was meant to close the
gap between Mission San
Antonio to the north and
Mission San Luis Obispo to
the south.

San Miguel was the second

mission established in the
land of the Salinan people,
six years after San Antonio
de Padua. The Salinan,
thought to number almost
3000 at the time of
European contact, were
hunter-gatherers .

Parts of Mission San Miguel

have been rebuilt - starting with
the fire of 1806 - several times.
After the illegal seculariztion of
Mission lands by the Mexican
Government in 1833, Mission
San Miguel was neglected for 36
years. The recovery of Mission
San Miguel and the first major
rebuilding program began with
the return of Father Philip
Farrelly in 1879.

Who burned down San Miguel

From February 1889 until the summer of 1891 a
clandestine organization of night riders known as
Las Gorras Blancas cut the fences and burned the
barns of ranchers enclosing the Las Vegas Land
Grant commons and destroyed railroad ties and
burned bridges in a related effort to disrupt the
railroadthe foundation of commercial
development of the land grant.

Old pictures.

Pictures now in the days.

Important facts
For some months during the
summer of 1795 Padre Sitjar
from Mission San Antonio
explored the region between
San Luis Obispo and San
Antonio.
Finally, on July 25, 1797, two
years later, Presidente Fermin
Francisco de Lasuen took
formal possession of the land
for Viceroy Branciforte and
founded the 16th of the
California missions.

Important fact

One of the chief purposes of the new mission was to facilitate

travel between Mission San Luis Obispo and San Antonio. The
mission system was so devised that each mission was a day's travel
from its neighbor.

By Miguel Colores