Posted on 05/03/2021 7:46:58 PM PDT by marshmallow
Nine months after a mysterious fire ripped through Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the historic church is still a mess.
The fire-blackened sanctuary walls hide behind layers of scaffolding. Pieces of peeling plaster remain. A temporary timber roof protects the 200-year-old interior from the elements, while a pair of scissor lifts shuffle around over the makeshift particle-board floors. Outside, contractors mill around the parish parking lot while the structure’s warped steel beams wait to be hauled away after being carefully unlodged over the course of weeks.
When the four-alarm fire struck in the predawn hours of July 11, 2020, destroying the mission’s roof and damaging most of its interior, mission officials and the local community were devastated.
But now, as the mission prepares for its 250th anniversary, silver linings from the fire perhaps more valuable than the millions of dollars in damage it caused are starting to emerge.
Behind those peeling layers of plaster, for example, workers have discovered painted walls with colorful designs that historians never knew existed. Beneath the sunken floors of the mission’s sacristy and tiny baptistery — crushed by the 150,000 gallons of water firefighters used to extinguish the blaze and save the mission from total destruction — previously unknown layers of old brick and slabs of stone mined from the San Gabriel Mountains have been unearthed.
Discoveries like these are handy tools to help historians understand the mission’s spotty past.
For Terri Huerta, the mission’s historical director, the hidden blessings of last summer’s fire are becoming clearer every day.
“Mission San Gabriel has kind of been a sleeping giant,” she explained during a recent visit to San Gabriel. “It’s been here, but no one’s really had the opportunity, like we do now, to tell its story.”
In other words, the fire may turn out.....
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicnewsagency.com ...
We went there on a fourth grade field trip in 1969. Great memories of it.
I remember visiting that mission with my parents in 1959 when I was 9 years old. I still recall how impressed I was by it.
“Mysterious Fire”,
.
Not arson?
.
I’m Mystified.
I went on the same trip. Except about 1964.
I first visited the mission on a field trip in 1961. In California, every fourth grader is assigned to write a report on or build a model of a mission. My mission report was on Nuestra Senora de la Soledad, located in Monterey County near Soledad. I finally was able to visit it in 2017.
Yeah. Mysterious my ass. Probably some commie punk anti Christian with a match.
For the curious, see Huell Howser’s excellent episode on the mission.
https://blogs.chapman.edu/huell-howser-archives/2000/12/08/california-missions-california-missions-102/
Fire Good. We should burn down all the missions to see if we can find something interesting in the remains.
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