The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-04-07
OLD CHURCH BELLS.
Those Of Southern California Mis-
SiOIG
Some of Them Have Tolled for Almost a
Century-Historic Relics OF the
Ancient Spanish Re-


'Many thousands OF eastern tourist.
in southern California have looked with
an awe inspired by their supposed an
tiquitv at the mission churches built by
the Spaniards, when the land which
now makes up this state was de
tendency of that nation These an.
tique-looking buildings are interest
ing enough without any fictitious
attributes, and while they represent al
epoch that is past, and rule that is
overthrown, they are. not SO very an
Gent. In fact" says Los Angeles
correspondent of the New York Tribune
''men are yet living here who were
prankish youngsters when the build
ings were begun. However. antiquities
are created very young sometimes. A
newspaper here recently commented on
the destruction of an historic building
in Redlands. That town is one of the
largest and busiest in southern Califor-
mia, but the building in question, as
well as the town. is only five years old,
yet it was in a way historic. as it was
| the first house in the place
But to return to the matter of the
! quaint Notwithstanding mission church
es scattered through southern Califor-
| MIA. They are somewhat primitive in
| design. and look as if they might be
! centuries in age. Another cause which
! has led to considerable error as to the
respective years in which they were
erected is the confounding of the dates
of the founding of the missions and the
subsequent erection of the church build
| ing itself
''B. A. c. Stephens, Of this city, has
| been profound student of California
and from him I learn the following
| facts: The mission church building at
| San Luis Rey was erected in 1902. By
the way, this is the most interesting of
all Of them, and is more nearly in the
condition and amid the surroundings
| which characterized these. churches in
the Spanish regime than any other.
San Gabriel mission was built in 1904,
San Juan de Capistiano and San
| Fernando in 1905, San Buenaventura il
1909, San Diego in 1913, and Santa Bar
bara in 1920.
'Thus the notwithstanding build
ing at San Gabriel is only a little over
Lightweight years old. Recently east
ern tourists in Los Angeles have been
attracted by some beautifully illumin-
ated pictures of this building which
were sold as souvenirs in the stores in
this city, and on which the date of cree
ton was printed as 1771. This serious
error marred the value of the other
wise finely executed pictures. The
year mentioned was the date of the es-
Establishment of the mission of the Arch
angel Holy Gabriel, on the Ell Monte
lowlands at what is now called the
old San Gabriel mission. This cold.
damp locality was productive Of too
much malarial fever among the priests,
and several earthquakes damaged the
poorly constructed buildings, SO that
three or four years afterward the holy
brothers moved several miles north
ward to the present beautiful site on
the warm, dry uplands, at what is now
known as San Gabriel Here they first
erected an adobe church which in 1904
was replaced by the present stone and
rubble structure. In this building ex-
Gov. Pho Pico, who is now, at the age of
nearly ninety-three. resident of West
Los Angeles, began his long public ca
reer first as an acolyte in the year
1909. There are many others yet living
who were here when the San Gabriel
church was built.
Even the bells are of the present
generation. Mr.. Stephens tells me that
he recently climbed to the belfry and
copied the inscriptions on them. So the
often written story about Spanish ladies
casting their jewels and golden orna-
ments into the melting pots to assist in
making the mission bells is not true as
to the one made by Mr.. Holbrook. and
probably not as to the other three.
The same tradition is associated with
the bells in every Spanish mission in
the Americas Neither are the bells
ancient, as one was made in 1928 and
the other in 1880. The undated ones do
not seem to be any older than the ones
which bear the year in which they were
made.
But the west knows and cares little
about time, and California particularly
has a right to be contemptuous of the
slow rate of progress in other localities
In less than fifty years it has developed
from Mexican province into a great
state, and the growth in that time has
amounted to what it would have taken
centuries to accomplish elsewhere The
missions are not ancient in years, but
in what they represent sentimentally
they are, in the language OF the day,
out Of sight ;"