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LA History Pop Quiz Answer: Where & Who is this Man?
Yesterday we asked. Today we answer.
This statue can be found in the West Garden among an old wine vat, a grinding stone, two bells (cast in Spain and bearing the dates of 1686 and 1720) and the Archival Center for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles at the Mission San Fernando, Rey De Espana in Mission Hills, a neighborhood in The Valley. If you have not been, this is one of those times to be a tourist in your own city (well worth the $4).
Many of our readers were correct in the location department (we were also partial to Sycz's answer: "My uncle's house in Granada Hills"). Others pointed to The Huntington Library and Mission San Gabriel.
So who was it? Many were confident it was Junipero Serra, "Father Presidente" over the first missions in California. The red herring in this quiz comes in the prolific amount of Serra cast statues around Los Angeles that were donated by the Hannon Foundation in the late nineties. Some others said it was St. Francis of Assisi, who Serra was a follower of. In this tale of followers comes the mystery man in the statue.
If you have ever wondered who Point Fermin Park in San Pedro is named after, here it is: Fray Fermín Francisco de Lasuén, second Padre Presidente of the California Missions.
During his presidency of eighteen years, Lasuén founded nine missions in California, just as Serra had founded an equal number before him. Moreover, he was personally present at the establishment of each. These missions were founded in the following order [Michael Hardwick, Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation]:
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1. Santa Barbara, December 4, 1786
2. Purisima Concepcion, December 8, 1787
3. Santa Cruz, August 28, 1791
4. Soledad, October 9, 1791
5. San Jose, June 11, 1797
6. San Juan Bautista, June 24, 1797
7. San Miguel, July 25, 1797
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8. San Fernando, September 8, 1797
9. San Luis Rey, June 13, 1798
Another good timeline of the Missions can be found at the California Missions Foundation webpage.
For tomorrow's quiz, the LA City Nerd chimes in with five Los Angeles history questions. See tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. and in the mean time, try LA Observed's Where in LA question from last year or the Guess Where L.A. Flickr group
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