Mission San Luis Rey De Francia

Mission San Luis Rey De Francia was established on June 13, 1798, which was 210 years ago. It was established by Father Fermin Lasuén. He was a missionary from France, and came after Father Serra.
Mission San Luis Rey De Francia was the 18th mission out of 21 missions. It’s nick-name was “King of The Missions,” because it was the biggest mission of them all.
The mission church was small to the people there. Today it is called the “small church” because of them.
But really, to us the “small church” isn’t small at all.
The “small church” held 1,000 people! Later, the people
tore the “small church” down and built a bigger church that held even more people!
The mission church was 180 feet long, 28 feet wide, and 30 feet high. It was made of adobe bricks, and had burnt bricks on the outside, which came to be 6 to 9 feet wide. The mission buildings covered 6 acres around a 500-foot square patio.
In 1830, Mission San Luis Rey De Francia was making great progress. They had 30 square miles of land on which they had 27,000 cattle, 26,000 sheep, 2,000 horses, and pigs, goats, ducks, chickens, and geese. They had huge wheat fields, vegetable garden and vineyards that produced great wine, groves of olive trees, and orange trees.
Mission San Luis Rey De Francia also had a water system, too. A complicated system brought water from a nearby river through a series of 12 underground pipe lines made out of burned bricks. A charcoal filtering system filtered water for drinking. Water from springs came out of mouths of 2 figures onto a big lavanderîa or laundry pile where the mission women scrubbed their clothes. Then the water went to the fields to water the plants.
In the quadrangle (or courtyard), people had bull fights because the courtyard was so big. The first pepper tree in California was planted in the courtyard. It was brought here from Peru in 1830. It is still there today!
By 1846, mission life had disappeared. During the Mexican-American War, the United States Army used the mission as a military outpost. In 1861 President Abraham Lincoln returned the mission buildings and a few surrounding acres back to church control.
Father Joseph O’Keefe began the work of restoring the mission in 1895. In 1905, the quadrangle and church was completed. Today, it is a working mission and is still being restored by members of the parish.



The End