Jamboree 2015 Excursion Thursday 4 June - San Fernando Mission

Guest blog post by Suzy Goulet

This year Jamboree has a special Thursday excursion lined up - a tour of the Mission San Fernando, Rey de España, which houses both the Archival Center for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Bob Hope Memorial Garden. The tour will leave from the parking lot in front of the Convention Center at 8:30 am and return around 1:00 pm.

The San Fernando Mission was founded on September 8, 1797 and was the seventeenth of twenty-one Spanish missions established in Alta California by the Franciscans along the El Camino Real. The mission was secularized in 1834, then returned to the Catholic Church in 1861. Today the mission and grounds function as a museum and include the Mission Church, an exact replica of the original church built between 1804 and 1806.

The Archival Center, located at the San Fernando Mission, serves as a repository for books, documents, photos, and records pertaining to the history of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, dating back to 1840 and its predecessor jurisdictions in California. Opened in 1980, the Archival Center is the official record repository for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the California Catholic Conference, functions as a resource center for questions dealing with the foundation and development of the Catholic Church in Western America, and houses and makes available to researchers the Estelle Doheny collection of Western Americana.

Adjacent to the mission chapel and overlooking the nearby San Fernando Mission cemetery, the Bob Hope Memorial garden is the inspirational final resting place of the legendary entertainer, several Hope family members, and close associates.

A docent will accompany us through all three locations on the tour. Information will be provided on how to access archival records held there at that time.

To learn more about The Archival Center at San Fernando Mission, visit the website.

To register for the tour:
SCGS Members Early bird (ends April 30): $40
SCGS Nonmembers Early bird (ends April 30): $45

Includes transportation and admission.