Baja California Mission Albums

The old missions of Baja California are artifacts from the past. Of the twenty-seven missions, eight are intact stone-built churches from the 1700s. The others are in ruins, vanished, or replaced by modern churches in the 1900s.

The history is quite interesting and detailed. Several books attempted to tell the story of many or all the missions beginning with Zephyrin Engelhardt’s 1908 & 1929 editions of ‘The Missions & Missionaries of California, Vol. 1 Lower California‘.

Other published sources include: Peveril Meigs’ 1935 ‘The Dominican Frontier of Lower California‘; Peter Masten Dunne’s 1952 ‘Black Robes in Lower California‘; Albert Bertrand Nieser’s 1960 ‘The Dominican Mission Foundations in Baja California, 1769-1822‘; Marquis McDonald’s 1968 ‘Baja: Land of Lost Missions‘; Walt Wheelock’s 1971 ‘Byroads of Baja‘; Choral Pepper’s 1973 & 1975 editions of ‘Baja California: Vanished Missions, Lost Treasures, Strange Stories Tall & True‘; W. Michael Mathes’ 1977 ‘The Mission of Baja California‘; Tomás Robertson’s 1978 ‘Baja California and its Missions‘; Harry Crosby’s 1994 ‘Antigua California‘; Edward W. Vernon’s 2002 ‘Las Misiones Antiguas, The Spanish Missions of Baja California‘; Robert Jackson’s 2005 ‘The Missions and the Frontiers of Spanish America‘; David Burckhalter’s 2013 ‘Baja California Missions, In the Footsteps of the Padres‘; and David Kier’s 2016 ‘Baja California Land of Missions‘.

In 2026, after a 10-year-run of printing new copies of my book, I am here going to share my collection of photographs, maps, site plans, and the chapter from my book for each mission. Some missions have or had ruins at multiple locations as nearly half of the missions relocated for better water sources or other reasons. Some mission albums will have these other sites on the same page and some will have separate albums for the other site.

As this project will take me some time to complete, do return to see additions made!

Mission albums listed from north to south:

Mission El Descanso photo and info page

Mission Guadalupe del Norte photo and info page

Mission San Miguel photo and info page

Mission Santa Catalina photo and info page

Mission Santo Tomás photo and info page

Mission San Vicente photo and info page

Mission San Pedro Mártir photo and info page

Mission Santo Domingo photo and info page

Mission El Rosario de Arriba photo and info page

Mission El Rosario de Abajo photo and info page