Overview

This was the first Roman Catholic religious community founded in what became the City of Santa Cruz, CA. The Basque Franciscan Friar Fermín de Francisco Lasuén de Arasqueta (1736-1803) was the second administrator of the order's missions in Alta CA, and was responsible for initiating the construction of nine of the twenty-one outposts in the system. Mission Santa Cruz, the twelfth community established, opened in 1791, but heavy rains in the winter of that year caused flooding that destroyed this first community. A second Mission Santa Cruz began operations two years later.

Building History

The Franciscans erected the first Mission Santa Cruz church and its outbuildings on a flood plain of the San Lorenzo River. The Santa Cruz Mountains above the mission receive a great deal of precipitation in the winter, and their western slopes descend rapidly to the ocean, causing rapid runoff of rainwater. Siting the first mission complex on low ground in an setting with a high potential for flash flooding doomed it. It was destroyed the year it was constructed.

Demolition

This first mission was swept away by floods in late 1791.

PCAD id: 19766