Mission San Fernando, Rey De Espana, 1797-1997, A Bicentennial Tribute (Southern California Quarterly (LXXIX,No.3))

In August 1795, Fray Fermin Francisco de Lasuen, presidente of the Franciscan missions, was eager to extend the chain of missions. At his urging, Fray Vincente de Santa Maria, a resident missionary ay Mission Buenaventura, explored the interior country between San Buenaventura and Mission San Gabriel in search of a prospective site for a mission. Lasuen, favorably impressed by the missionary's description of an area located on Francisco Reyes's Rancho Encino, visited the locale and selected it as a site for Alta California's seventeenth mission, the eighth founded under his direction. Thus was the Mission San Fernando Rey de España brought into being on September 8, 1797.