Mission San Juan Capistrano, today a popular Southern California tourist attraction, was founded by the Spaniards as a place of worship in 1776. After Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, and later ceded California by treaty to the United States, the church compound became private property in the 1840s, according to the San Juan Capistrano Chamber of Commerce. In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln returned the mission to the Roman Catholic Church.
Priests and missionaries from Spain, built 21 Catholic missions in California. Mission San Juan Capistrano -- Saint John Capistrano in English -- was named for an Italian saint, Giovanni Capistrano; Giovanni is Italian for John. The mission was founded by Father Junipero Serra, who established a number of missions in California. The city where the mission is located -- in what is today Orange County -- is also called San Juan Capistrano.
After the mission was established, Serra Chapel, named for Junipero Serra, where you can still attend weekday church services, was built in 1782. The chapel’s elaborately decorated altar is decorated with the faces of 52 angels -- one for each Sunday in the year. Paintings and a statue on the grounds depict Saint Capistrano. Because the first missionaries and converts sat on the ground, church pews were not added until the early 1900s, according to the mission.
By 1806, work was completed on another place of worship called the Great Stone Church. It had seven domes and a 120-foot bell tower. An earthquake in 1812 destroyed the church and killed 40 people. Four original bells still hang on a bell wall at the ruins. While the old stone church was never rebuilt, a new church patterned after the old building’s design opened nearby in 1987, according to the San Juan Capistrano Historical Society. The newer church is called Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano.
Like many church missions in early California, Mission San Juan Capistrano contained work facilities, schools and living quarters. The 1840 classic book by Richard Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, describes trading in animal hides in the mission’s courtyard. Some rooms surrounding the central courtyard were used for storage or workrooms. One building housed soldiers and a jail. A museum is now housed in the former workrooms. The one-time soldiers’ barracks is used for art shows. The courtyard attracts tourists to concerts and other public events scheduled each year.
Since the early years of the 20th century, local residents and visitors have celebrated the story of the arrival each March of tiny cliff swallows that nest in the ruins of the Great Stone Church before departing in October. The San Juan Capistrano Fiesta Association for more than 50 years has held a Swallows Day Parade each March. The local story became nationally known after radio stations began playing the 1940 hit song, “When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano.” A popular children’s book, “Song of Swallows,” was published in 1948. The birds have rarely been seen in recent years, due in part to urbanization, and have nested elsewhere in Southern California, according to an NBC Los Angeles report in 2013. To eventually lure the swallows back to the mission, speakers were installed on the ground in 2013 to begin playing recordings of the birds’ mating calls each March.
