La Purisima Demonstration Day

August 30, 2025

We gathered together at the Visitor Center, and after walking a few steps to the entry sign, La Purisima specialist Tim Waag introduced us to the site. Several hundred acres are owned by State Parks with 25 miles of trails surrounding the main complex of mission buildings. Almost everything that is opened to visitors during “Demonstration Days” is a reconstruction from the plans prepared by the Historic American Building Surveys in 1935.

After lunch, our carload of Steve Schmidt, Judy Harvey, Tim Waag and John Ashbaugh extended their time in Lompoc to visit the site of the ORIGINAL 1797 mission site that was destroyed by cataclysmic earthquakes and storms in 1812. It was that event which led the Mission Fathers to relocate the mission to the present site. We had the opportunity to stand beside all that remains of the original chapel, the masonry columns that stood on each side of the doors to the church.