MISSION OF SAN ANTONIO DE PALA, FOUNDED IN 1816.
“Many a romantic tale has been told about the ‘bells of Pala’!”
SAN LUÍS REY
San Luís Rey de Francia (St. Louis King of France), is the name of the mission situated in a charming little valley about forty miles north of San Diego and three miles from the sea. It was founded June 13, 1798, by Padres Lasuén, Santiago and Peyri, and its ruins may still be seen upon the spot. A partial restoration has been made of these buildings and they are now used by the Franciscans. The exact circumstances of its naming have not come to light, but we know of its patron saint that his holiness was such that even Voltaire said of him: “It is scarcely given to man to push virtue further.” Born at Poissy in 1215, the son of Louis VIII and Blanche of Castile, he became noted for his saintliness, and twice led an army of Crusaders in the “holy war.”
PALA
Pala, often misspelled palo, through an accidental resemblance to the Spanish word palo (stick or tree), is situated some fifteen miles or more to the northeast of San Luís Rey, and is the site of the sub-mission of San Antonio de Pala, founded in 1816 by Padre Peyri as a branch of San Luís Rey. This mission was unique in having a bell-tower built apart from the church, and many romantic stories have been told about the “bells of Pala.” It was located in the center of a populous Indian community, and it happens, rather curiously, that the word itself has a significance both in Spanish and Indian, meaning in Spanish “spade” and in Indian “water.” The Reverend George Doyle, pastor at the mission of San Antonio de Pala, writes the following in regard to this name: “The word ‘Pala’ is an Indian word, meaning, in the Cupanian Mission Indian language, ‘water,’ probably due to the fact that the San Luís Rey River passes through it. The proper title of the mission chapel here is San Antonio de Padua, but as there is another San Antonio de Padua mission chapel in the north, to distinguish between the two some one in the misty past changed the proper title of the Saint, and so we have ‘de Pala’ instead of ‘de Padua.’ Some writers say Pala is Spanish, but this is not true, for the little valley in no way resembles a spade, and the Palanian Indians were here long before the Franciscan padres brought civilization, Christianity and the Spanish language.”
Pala, in this case, is almost certainly Indian, and originates in a legend of the Luiseños. According to this legend, one of the natives of the Temécula tribe went forth on his travels, stopping at many places and giving names to them. One of these places was a canyon, “where he drank water and called it pala, water.”—(The Religion of the Luiseño Indians, by Constance Goddard Dubois, in the Univ. of Cal. Publ. of Arch. and Tech.)