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9
Chapter 2: Spanish Missions
nerve-wracking, trial-and-error experi
ment in
San Diego. The first year, the mission planted
wheat in the bed of the San Diego River. A
flood washed out all the seeds. The second
year, they planted farther from the banks. Little
rain fell that summer and the water never
reached the fields.
By 1773, they had grown tired of bringing
water up to Presidio Hill
and they were cultivat-
ing fields farther up river where there seemed
to be more rain. The priests moved their mis-
sion six miles upstream to
the eastern end of today’s
Mission Valley, leaving the
military fort behind on the
hill. This new location
was the site of an
existing Kumeyaay
village called Nipaguay
— and a new popula-
tion of natives to convert.
Father Serra wrote, “The
place is much more suitable
for a population on account
of the facility of obtaining
the necessary water and on
account of the vicinity of
good land for cultivation.”
7
HARNESSING THE WATER SUPPLY
Droughts and food shortages continued to
plague the mission. In 1792, the missionaries
built a canal to bring water from springs to
Mission Valley. Still, that was not enough. In
1803, they hunted for a place to build a dam.
Upstream at
Mission Gorge, they found a
convenient outcrop of bedrock where water
flowed over the surface rather than through
sand. There they built the county’s first
masonry dam, which we now call
Old Mission
Dam or Padre Dam, to hold water and release
a reliable, year-round
flow. Unfortunately,
too much of the
released water perco-
lated into the sandy
riverbed between the
dam and the mission.
Over the next decade,
they built a tile flume
two-feet wide and
one-foot deep on a
bed of cobblestones
and cement
—
the county's first
aqueduct! They also
built a settling basin
with sand traps to
clear the water before
Flume – Old Mission Aqueduct, 1929
The San Diego Historical
Society
San Francisco de Solano (1823)
San Rafael Arcángel
(1817)
San Francisco
de Asís (1776)
San José de Guadalupe (1797)
Santa Clara de Asís (1777)
Santa Cruz (1791)
San Juan Bautista (1797)
Nuestra Señora de la Soledad (1791)
San Carlos Borromeo
de Carmelo (1770)
San Antonio
de Padua (1771)
San Luis Obispo de Tolosa (1772)
San Diego de Alcalá (1769)
San Luis Rey de Francia (1798)
San Juan Capistrano (1776)
San Gabriel Arcángel (1771)
San Fernando Rey de España (1797)
San Buenaventura (1782)
Santa Bárbara (1786)
Santa Inés (1804)
La Purísi
ma Concepción (1787)
San Miguel Arcángel (1797)
Missions of California