The mission which we visited was not the original La Purisima; of this only a few earthen heaps remain. The date of its foundation was December 8, 1787, and the ceremonies were conducted by Padre Lasuen, who has so many missions to his credit. The success of the new venture was phenomenal—in less than twenty years the population numbered over fifteen hundred and the mission was rich in live stock and other property. This prosperity received a sad check from the great earthquake of 1812, which totally destroyed the buildings, leaving the people homeless at the beginning of an unusually wet and cold winter. Then it was that the original site was abandoned and the erection begun of the buildings which I have described. The Indians were intelligent and industrious and worked hard to rebuild the mission and their homes, which had also been destroyed. An extensive irrigation scheme was devised and carried out, but a series of misfortunes prevented the return of former prosperity. Plague decimated the cattle and sheep, and fire destroyed the neophytes' quarters in 1818. In 1823 the revolt at Santa Barbara spread to Purisima, and several Indians and Spanish soldiers were killed before quiet was restored. Under such depressing influence the population steadily declined and numbered but four hundred at secularization in 1835. After the looting was completed the property was turned back to the church in 1843, but a year later an epidemic of smallpox practically wiped out the scanty remnants of the Indian population. From that time the mission was abandoned and uncared for, gradually falling into ruin, and its melancholy condition to-day is the result of seventy years of decay and neglect.
Leaving Lompoc, we followed the Santa Ynez River for several miles. The road winds among the splendid oaks which overarch it much of the way and finally joins the main highway at the top of Gaviota Pass. It seldom took us out of sight of the river, though in places it rose to a considerable distance above the stream which dashed in shallow rapids over its stony bed. The last few miles were a steady climb, but there was much sylvan beauty along the way—wooded slopes dropped far beneath on one hand and rose high above us on the other. Through occasional openings in the trees we caught long vistas of hills and valleys, now touched with soft blue shadows heralding the approach of evening. From the summit of Gaviota the long winding descent brought us to the broad sweep of the sunset sea, which we followed in the teeth of a high wind to Santa Barbara, where the Arlington afforded a welcome pause to a strenuous day.
Just across the bridge a few miles out of Ventura we noted a sign, "To Nordhoff," and determined to return to Los Angeles by this route. It proved a fortunate choice, the rare beauty of the first twenty miles atoning for some rough running later. For the entire distance we closely followed the Ventura River, a clear, dashing mountain stream bordered by hundreds of splendid oaks whose branches frequently met over our heads. We crossed the stream many times, fording it in a few places, and passed many lovely sylvan glades—ideal spots for picnic or camp. Along the road were water tanks to supply the sprinklers, which kept down the dust during the rainless season, giving added freshness to the cool retreats along this pleasant road. Nordhoff is a lonely little town of two or three hundred people, set down in the giant hills surrounding it on every hand. Four or five miles up the mountainside is Matilija Hot Springs, with a well-appointed resort hotel, a favorite with motorists, who frequently come from Los Angeles to spend the week-end.
Out of Nordhoff we climbed a stiff mountain grade on the road to Santa Paula, which we found another isolated little town at the edge of the hills. From here we pursued a fairly level but rough and sandy road to Saugus, a few miles beyond which we came into the new boulevard leading through Newhall Tunnel to San Fernando. An hour's run took us into the city, just two weeks after our departure, and our odometer indicated that we had covered two thousand miles during that time.
A year later, on our return from the north, we pursued the "Inland Route" by way of Bakersfield and the Tejon Pass. This route has been finally adopted by the State Highway Commission, but at the time of our trip little had been done to improve the road north of Saugus, thirty miles from Los Angeles. It certainly was in need of improvement, as the notes set down in my "log book" testify. Concerning our run between Fresno and Bakersfield I find the following comment:
"A day on rotten roads—hardly a decent mile between the two towns. We followed the line of the Southern Pacific for the entire day over a neglected, sandy trail, with occasional broken-up oiled stretches. Towns on the way were little, lonely, sandy places, unattractive and poorly improved. No state highway completed, though some work was in progress in Kern and Fresno Counties, making several detours necessary—not a mile free from unmerciful jolting."
And here I might remark that had we taken the longer route from Goshen to Delano by the way of Visalia and Portersville, we might have avoided forty miles of the roughest road. The highway is to make this detour; but there was no immediate prospect of building it at the time of our trip, as Tulare County felt too poor to buy the bonds.
For several miles out of Fresno we ran through vineyards and orchards, passing two or three large wineries not far from the road. A narrow belt of grainfields and meadows succeeded, but the country gradually became poorer until we found ourselves in a sandy desert whose only vegetation was a short red grass with barbed needles which stick to one's clothing in an annoying manner.
Maps of California usually show Lake Tulare as a considerable body of water, twenty to thirty miles in diameter, lying a few miles west of the town. They told us at Tulare that the lake had practically disappeared, a good part of its bed now being occupied by wheatfields. Dry weather and the diversion of water for irrigation have been the chief factors in wiping out the lake, which was never much more than a shallow morass.
Beyond Tulare we again came into a sandy, desert-looking country and were astonished to see billboards in one of the little towns offering "bargains in land at one hundred and thirty-five dollars per acre"—to all appearances the country was as barren and unpromising as the Sahara, but no doubt the price included irrigation rights. Along this road we noticed occasional groves of stunted eucalyptus trees, neglected and dying in many instances. It occurred to us that these groves were planted by the concerns which sold stock to Eastern "investors" on representation that the eucalyptus combined all the merits to be found in all the trees of the forest. The fact is that it is not fit for much and the "fly-by-night" concerns disappeared as soon as they had pocketed the cash, leaving their victims to bemoan "another California swindle."