by Deacon Jewel Sean Gentry

West facing front mission aerial view showing the original entrance plaza. El Camino Real runs north and south on the right side of the mission.

Since its early days, the Mission has been damaged by earthquakes, including one in 1803 which destroyed it. It took nine years to make the extraordinary number of adobes and tiles required but the present church was finally completed on June 23, 1812.

While the Mission has had periodic restoration over the last two centuries, it is now at grave risk because its buildings have not been seismically retrofitted, and their leaking roofs are causing the adobe bricks to deteriorate and lose their strength. Seismologists have estimated a 62 % probability for one or more magnitude 6.7 or greater earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay Region from 2003 – 2032. The Mission church is only 100 feet from the San Andreas Fault. It is the only California mission which has not had a seismic upgrade.

Recognizing the need to restore and preserve the Mission, the Parish commissioned the“ Mission San Juan Bautista Historic Structures Report”( HSR) by Architectural Resources of San Francisco. The Report, published in 2013, is a comprehensive analysis of the Mission with detailed recommendations for its restoration and preservation. In May 2015, seeing the mounting deterioration of the Mission, including the badly leaking church roof, a concerned group of community leaders, all parishioners, committed their collective efforts to save the mission. In October 2015, the volunteers formed

Mission San Juan Bautista mission bell. a Board of Directors and in November, the Mission San Juan Bautista Preservation Fund became a 501( c) 3 non-profit corporation. Continued...

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