The plaza was the gathering place for the small and historic town of San Juan. Built on a fault scarp of the San Andreas, the town seems more frozen in the time of the pastoral days of the Californios and their cattle on a thousand hills. The mission was founded by Father Lasuen in the 1700s and this central plaza hosted fandangos and bull and bear fights and gentle summer evenings under moonlight and guitar accompaniment from the balconies of the enclosing buildings.
Download the History Cake app to experience this story with automatic audio narration as you visit the location.