Mission La Purisima - version 1 - was destroyed by the December 21, 1812 Santa Barbara earthquake and powerful rainstorms afterward. When - version 2 - rebuilding was being planned, a more suitable site (better access to water, better climate, closer to the main highway El Camino Real) was selected about four miles away, at the present site of the Mission grounds. (Ruins from the original mission can be found in Lompoc, California at 508 South F Street; I didn't go into town, though.) The Mission was built contrary to the "usual" setup of a quadrangle: it was largely a long row of buildings parallel to El Camino Real outside.

Secularization affected Mission La Purisima Concepcion like many of the others; the land was divided up, and the mission was sold and changed hands a number of times in the later half of the 1800s. Union Oil was the last land-owner, who gave the site to public ownership in 1933. By 1934, preservation and reconstruction began, a combined effort of the County of Santa Barbara, State of California, National Park Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps; the goal was to return the site to its 1820s glory. (Today, it boasts 1,928 acres - a shadow of the mission's 300,000 acre holding - but the key lands are today back with the Mission.)

Founded: December 8, 1797 (#11) by Father Fermin Lasuen, near present-day Lompoc, California at 2295 Purisima Road.

Visit: California State Park; $6 car parking ($5 for seniors), free guided tours (as docents are available; but even on a random weekday and one of just a few people there, we had a docent!); as of July 2018. See their web site for hours... it's... complex. Closed most legal and State holidays; again, see web site for all the particulars.)

Learn more: Mission's Web Site * Wikipedia: Mission La Purisima Concepcion * Photos I Took * No tour map from Mission La Purisima Concepcion