In San Benito County, San Juan Bautista has kept something most California mission towns lost: a whole plaza of Spanish, Mexican and early American buildings. California State Parks calls it what was once the "town square" of the largest town in central California and a key crossroads between Northern and Southern California. The plaza district became a National Historic Landmark in 1970.
The mission
Fermín de Lasuén founded Mission San Juan Bautista on June 24, 1797. It was the 15th Spanish mission in what is now California. Ohlone people from the valley, and later Yokuts from the Central Valley, were brought to live at the mission. Many were mistreated and kept from leaving. More than 4,000 people are buried in its cemetery, most of them Native converts. Father Estevan Tapis taught singing there with a color-coded musical notation, and his choir earned San Juan the nickname "the Mission of Music."
The church was built between 1803 and 1812 and is one of the largest of the mission churches. It sits right next to the San Andreas Fault and was damaged in earthquakes including 1800 and 1906. A stretch of the old El Camino Real on a fault scarp just east of the church is still unpaved. The mission is still an active parish of the Diocese of Monterey and is run separately from the state park. Hitchcock filmed key scenes of Vertigo (1958) there, and added a bell tower using special effects.
The state park
The state park, created in 1933, takes up the rest of the plaza. Its four main museums are the Plaza Hotel, the Zanetta House and Plaza Hall, the Plaza Stables, and the Castro-Breen Adobe. The hotel began in 1814 as a barracks for Spanish soldiers and got its second story in 1858. The adobe was built from 1839 to 1841 for José Antonio Castro, a leading figure in Mexican California. The park also has a blacksmith shop, an old jail and a settler's cabin.
Visiting
The park is on Second Street between Washington and Mariposa streets. It is open daily for self-guided visits and offers guided walking tours by reservation. It is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Admission to the park does not include the mission, which has its own hours and, according to State Parks, is closed to field trips on Mondays and Tuesdays.