Mission Santa Inés, Spanish mission station in Solvang, United States.
Mission Santa Inés is a white stucco church with a peaked roof of reddish-brown tiles, a single arched barred window above a wooden arched door flanked by a small cross. A square white bell tower to the right holds one bell in a curved gable topped by a cross, with two open arched niches on its front and one on its side. Potted plants sit on the paving in front.
Father Estévan Tapís founded the site in 1804 as the nineteenth mission in a chain of twenty-one across California. Its location between Santa Barbara and La Purísima was chosen to support evangelization and administration of the region.
The mission is named after St. Agnes of Rome, and its church now serves as a parish of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The Chumash revolt of 1824 began after a soldier beat a young Chumash native at the mission; the fighting ended when the natives themselves put out the fire at the mission. Many Chumash then left for the mountains, and only a few remained.
The church still serves as a parish of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, so visitors share the site with an active congregation. The mission stands within Solvang, and the Danish-style town grew up around it in the early 1900s. Much of the complex is a museum, and restoration work has continued under the Capuchin Franciscan Fathers.
The compound housed California's first seminary starting in 1843, founded by Francisco García Diego y Moreno. This marked a turning point in religious education within what was then a Mexican province.
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