Mission San Fernando Rey de España

The Story

Lasuén founded San Fernando Rey de España on September 8, 1797, closing the gap between San Buenaventura on the coast and San Gabriel inland. It was named for St. Ferdinand III, the 13th-century king of Castile. The Tataviam, Tongva, and Chumash people of the valley built it, and the valley took its name from the mission.

Because it sat on the main road to Los Angeles, San Fernando took in a steady stream of travelers, and the friars built the Convento to house them. Finished in 1822 after twelve years of work, it runs more than 240 feet with a colonnade of nineteen arches and holds over twenty rooms on two floors. It is the largest freestanding adobe structure in California and the mission's signature sight.

The church was damaged repeatedly by earthquakes, most severely in the 1971 Sylmar quake, and was rebuilt as an exact replica in 1974. Today the mission serves as a chapel of ease of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles rather than a full parish, and the grounds operate as a museum. Visitors see the church with its painted decoration and carved statue of St. Ferdinand sent by the king of Spain, the Convento, a Córdoba-style fountain, a replica winery, gardens, and a memorial garden.

Church Recognition

Mission San Fernando Rey de España was founded on September 8, 1797 by Fr. Fermín Francisco de Lasuén. It is the seventeenth of the twenty-one missions of Alta California, and today it is chapel of ease of the archdiocese of los angeles, with museum and grounds.

The mission was built by Native Californians, and the Church has publicly acknowledged the coercion and harm that mission life involved. That history is told in full on the California Mission Trail page, and it belongs to this place as much as its founding date does.

Go Deeper

Its Convento, the largest freestanding adobe building in California, with nineteen arches.

This mission is one of the twenty-one on the California Mission Trail, the seventeenth to be founded. The trail page carries the history of the chain as a whole, including the Church's own reckoning with it.