In 1767, Catholic Franciscan friar Junipero Serra was directed to create permanent settlements in an area of the New World called Alta California. Over the next 56 years, the Spanish established 21 ...

The missions—built between 1769 and 1823 and extending in a chain of 600 miles from Sonoma to San Diego—stand as symbols of California's Spanish colonial past. Pictured is San Miguel's bell tower.

Ocala | In a sandy, overgrown expanse of countryside midway between Ocala and Gainesville lay clues to the early exploration and colonization of the New World. Not far from where a family of local ...

Spanish missions, which stretch from San Francisco Solano in the Bay Area to San José del Cabo in Baja California, are a visible reminder of the Spanish colonial history that California and Mexico ...

OCALA - On a recent day, Willet Boyer stood high atop a dirt mound somewhere in the Ocala National Forest, land he once romped across as a child. He peered down at the ground below him, knowing that ...

(The Conversation) — California's colonial Spanish missions were sited to produce illuminations on solstices or equinoxes, demonstrating the power of our instincts to guide us through the darkness ...

Twelve thousand years ago, the area around what is now known as San Antonio must have been something of a paradise for the small bands of hunter-gatherers who would pass through on a seasonal basis.

SAN ANTONIO − During a recent road trip to this beguiling Texas city, I spent a considerable amount of time in churches. Most were Catholic churches, of course, since San Antonio's origins revolved ...

The halls are alive with the sound of mission bells. That’s how it felt last week as Georgia history teacher Jacquelin Harden walked me past 100 models of Spanish missions at West Chatham Middle ...