A view of the the restored mission as it regains its original appearance of its past. More than 2,000 baptisms and 736 marriages were placed in the records during the years the Mission operated.
The gravesite of José Joaquín de Arrillaga, the first Spanish governor of Alta California . His grave was recently located through the mission's restoration project. It was once burried beneath the original church floor, but flooding destroyed the church and the original markers.
Through flooding of the Salinas River, seculariztion of the missions, and neglect, the original church site parished to the elements and the adobe crumbled to dust. By the time restoration started in 1954, there was little left of the mission but a pile of rubble. A restoration project to rebuild the mission was sponsored by the Native Daughters of the Golden West.
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Located in the Salinas Valley, Mission Nuestra Senora de la Soledad is surrounding by farmland. Looking at the fertile, irrigated farmlands that surround the site today, it is hard to image the desolate, windy, open plains that greeted Franciscan Friar Presidente Ferman Lasuen in October, 1971.
Return to Mission Nuestra Senora de la Soledad.