SOLEDAD
Soledad (solitude), in Monterey County, 143 miles southeast of San Francisco, is described as “a very dry plain, with few trees, swept by fierce winds and dust storms in summer.” No wonder they called it Soledad,—Lonesometown!
Yet those same dry plains proved to be of sufficient fertility to warrant the establishment, in 1791, of the mission of Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, freely translated as “Our Lady of Sorrows,” which became the center of a large and prosperous Indian community. The buildings of the mission have now fallen into almost complete decay.