About Us

Mass and the sacraments have been celebrated continuously at Mission San Juan Bautista since its founding in 1797. Mission San Juan Bautista is the largest of the 21 California mission churches and the only one with its original entrance plaza still intact.

The Mission welcomes 100,000 annual visitors, including 40,000 school aged children, primarily 4th graders.



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.

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 a Board of Directors and in November, the Mission San Juan Bautista Preservation Fund became a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, EIN#47-5427661.