Mission San Juan Capistrano

In its Spanish days, Mission San Juan Capistrano grew only the necessities. There were large plantings of wheat, corn and beans. Tomatoes and other vegetables were raised in a garden bordering what is now Ortega Highway, and an orchard southeast of the mission harbored trees bearing pomegranates, peaches, apricots and olives. A nearby vineyard grew grapes for the sacramental wines. Historians believe a few flowers may have brightened the mission in the years after its founding in 1776, but the missionaries and their Indian charges put most of their energies into producing essentials for the isolated outpost.

The air may be chilly from the weekend's winter storm, but San Juan Capistrano is gearing up for spring by celebrating the annual return of the swallows. Monday was Swallows' Day for Mission San Juan Capistrano, where lore has it that cliff swallows return each year just in time for St. Joseph's Day after wintering 6,000 miles away in Argentina. Although the gregarious birds have hardly been seen at the historic mission in recent years, swallows nest in small numbers elsewhere, in the eaves of schools, shopping malls and underneath freeway overpasses.

Zorro leaves his mark at mission Zorro, the legendary masked crusader who pulled off Robin Hood-like deeds in Old California with the flick of his sword, has returned to his old haunt. A new exhibit at Mission San Juan Capistrano highlights many famous Zorros — Douglas Fairbanks, Tyrone Power, Guy Williams and, most recently, Antonio Banderas — with costumes and props from films and the vintage TV serial. Also on display is the original "pitch book" that persuaded Walt Disney to produce the TV show based on the Zorro character.

At Mission San Juan Capistrano, founded centuries ago to spread the Christian faith, Rabbi Allen Krause started an annual interfaith conference in 1994 because he felt that Orange County's religious groups were too insular. About 600 people attended the first Religious Diversity Faire, with spiritual leaders from more than a dozen faiths holding workshops on their beliefs and practices. The event was staged for 15 more years. Providing a window into the religious beliefs of others was a recurring theme for Krause, who was recognized as a trailblazer in the county's interfaith movement.

Mission San Juan Capistrano 31522 Camino Capistrano San Juan Capistrano (714) 493-1424 LOCATION: off Interstate 5 and Ortega Highway, at the corner of Camino Capistrano. HOURS OF OPERATION: 7:30 a.m.-5 p.m., year-round. ADMISSION: $2 adults; $1 children under 12 years old; children under 6 free. HISTORY: By 1697, the Jesuit order, in cooperation with Spain, had begun to establish a chain of missions in Lower or Baja California.

It lures a diverse set of worshipers: A real estate lawyer from Irvine, a Basque from southwestern France, a homeless man who sleeps on the streets of this historic city. But when they file into Serra Chapel on the grounds of Mission San Juan Capistrano each morning, this eclectic crowd maintains a tradition that began 210 years ago with Father Junipero Serra, the Franciscan missionary priest who built missions from San Diego to San Francisco during the colonization of California.

Cliff swallows have a wide breeding range for a migratory bird--all the way from the northern Yukon down into southern Mexico--but it's their annual return to one tiny spot in San Juan Capistrano that brings out the crowds. The return of the swallows (celebrated in a hit 1940 tune) to Mission San Juan Capistrano will be marked Thursday, St. Joseph's Day, when 98-year-old town patriarch Paul Arbiso rings the mission bells, just as he has done for more than six decades.

In a land where today's hot restaurant is tomorrow's empty shell, and those here longer than a year are considered old-timers, there is a solid, reassuring feel to the news that the ringer of the bell at Mission San Juan Capistrano is only the third man to hold the job in more than a century. Last Sunday was the first time that Michael Gastelum, 39, rang the bell to mark the annual return of the swallows.

Brian Brazeal is a young man practicing a dying craft. Machines such as welding torches and drill presses may have gutted the demand for old-fashioned blacksmiths, but Brazeal has still found a way to pound out a living with his hands. Six days a week, the 35-year-old Oklahoma native can be found at Mission San Juan Capistrano, turning red-hot iron into things that people want and buy.

The original painted decorations inside the dome of the Great Stone Church at Mission San Juan Capistrano, seen by few people since an 1812 earthquake, are finally being studied and preserved. Mission officials have taken samples of the paint from the 13 decorations to the University of Pennsylvania for analysis. They plan to treat the decorations with chemicals to bring out their colors and preserve them.

The crucifix has a bullet wound. The story goes that around 1900 a man embroiled in a business dispute unloaded his anger — and his pistol — inside a chapel at Mission San Juan Capistrano. Miraculously, no one was hurt. But the 18th century silver cross likely used by mission founder Father Junipero Serra took one near the top. That the crucifix survived at all is a miracle itself. Generations of carelessness and theft stripped California's missions of much of their artwork and artifacts.

Zorro leaves his mark at mission Zorro, the legendary masked crusader who pulled off Robin Hood-like deeds in Old California with the flick of his sword, has returned to his old haunt. A new exhibit at Mission San Juan Capistrano highlights many famous Zorros — Douglas Fairbanks, Tyrone Power, Guy Williams and, most recently, Antonio Banderas — with costumes and props from films and the vintage TV serial. Also on display is the original "pitch book" that persuaded Walt Disney to produce the TV show based on the Zorro character.

There was a time, people here say, when the swallows swarmed San Juan Capistrano in the days just before winter gave way to spring. Every year, locals say, the white-bellied birds filled the sky like a rain cloud. They returned to their nests in the old adobe mission as church bells rang, heralding their arrival. But the mission bells have rung over and over during this year's Festival of the Swallows, which ends today, and the tiny birds just won't make an appearance.

Kinoshita and Del Obispo elementary schools are just an athletic field apart, but for many in San Juan Capistrano, the gap is a potent symbol of an issue that has roiled this south Orange County town in recent years: school segregation. The schools are on the edge of a middle-class, mostly white neighborhood. But while Del Obispo's students are about 55% white, Kinoshita's enrollment is about 95% Latino. It is a disparity that former district teacher Gia Lugo said highlights the wide gap in race relations in this historic community.

When Mission San Juan Capistrano built a rectory garden for parish priests this summer, there was one blessing they forgot to seek: the city's. Officials learned of the project -- replete with rose bushes, a fountain and an outdoor kitchen with a fireplace -- and ordered the work to stop, saying they believed it was on a portion of an old Native American cemetery.

Tony Forster, 71, a former mayor of San Juan Capistrano whose pioneering family owned the mission there in the 19th century, died Tuesday at Mission Hospital, according to Don Tryon, a friend and San Juan Capistrano historian. Forster had a brain aneurysm last month. His great-great-grandfather John Forster, who changed his name to Don Juan Forster, was born in England and traveled to California, where he married the sister of Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of California.

There's a time machine in San Juan Capistrano. It doesn't have glass dials or brass gauges marking decades past and future. It bears no on-off switch, no fancy wires. It will, nonetheless, transport you to a different time. "It's beautiful and serene," says Jim Graves, who has taken the trip many times. "There's a religious significance to it -- you feel the presence of God. It takes you to the beginnings of civilization and lifestyle as we know it in California."

For the last 30 years, one of Dorothy O'Quinn's dreams was to come to Mission San Juan Capistrano and watch the fabled March 19 return of the swallows. The 81-year-old retired schoolteacher's wish was finally fulfilled Thursday. Armed with her camera, O'Quinn arrived at the mission early and couldn't help but keep scanning the skies. To hear her tell it, she expected the sky to darken and thousands of the migratory birds to swoop down into the mission.

A weekend art show raised more than $200,000 for a dozen environmental and arts groups, organizers said Monday. The Heritage Art Exhibition at Oaks Ranch in San Juan Capistrano featured 40 artists, some of whose works depicted the 50,000-acre Ranch Land Reserve, co-organizer Joan Irvine Smith said.

A $2-million, golden altarpiece that stands more than four stories tall within the Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano will be unveiled today at an afternoon Mass. On Friday, as workers hurried to apply finishing touches to the lighting of the Grand Retablo, worshipers entering the basilica froze upon viewing the altarpiece for the first time. One woman with rosary in hand stood for several minutes, staring in amazement as tears rimmed her eyes.