Mission State Park

Mission State Park can be found in historic downtown Santa Cruz, California. The actual mission is adobe and located near School Street. The historic park is centered on Santa Cruz Mission, which has several buildings as part of a cluster. The first was Neary Rodriguez Adobe and it was built in 1791. It is also one of the last buildings to survive history. Santa Cruz Mission was the 12th mission out of the 21 in California. It was completed in the early 1790s, but by 1857 most of the buildings collapsed due to earthquakes.

Mission State Park was a project by Santa Cruz city to give residents a place to be outside, but more to remember history. During their excavation and monitoring, ruins where found dating to Native American residents and early California settlements. A few of the buildings were stone. There was one pre-1824 building that was more than 200 feet long. Quite a bit of the land was used as refuse pits, which have been dug out in order to clean the park grounds.

Today visitors will see museum rooms, a visitor center, garden patio, and native plant display, and can take part in a number of educational programs.