Mission San Gabriel Arcángel

This is a guidepost, not a plaque. Civic clubs founded the Camino Real Association in 1904 to mark the road that linked the missions, and Mrs. A.S.C. Forbes designed what they chose: a cast-iron bell hung from an eleven-foot crook, the shape of a shepherd's staff. The first went up outside the Plaza Church in 1906, and some 450 followed by 1913. Theft and traffic took most of them. Caltrans has been putting them back since the 1970s, cast from the original molds.

What the plaque says

San Gabriel Mission was founded by Fr. Pedro Benito Cambon (statue above right) and Fr. Angel Fernandez de la Somera (statue above left) on Sept. 8, 1771 in nearby Montebello by the Rio Hondo River, and moved to this location in 1775. This mission's Cross above the entrance door was first installed about 1959, taken down for earthquake retrofit in early 1990's, was restored and rededicated on March 7, 2009 at 11 a.m. The El Camino Real bell in front of the church was cast, and then placed here on Aug. 15, 1906, by Los Angeles Section, El Camino Real Association.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mission San Gabriel Arcangel — steps away
  The fourth Alta California mission, built on Tongva land with Tongva labor, rebuilt after arson and now telling that story straight.
• Colorado Street Bridge — 4.7 mi
  Beaux-Arts concrete arches curving 150 feet above the Arroyo Seco, opened in 1913 and later a link in Route 66.
• Santa Monica Pier — 23 mi
  Where the Mother Road runs out of continent, and where the End of the Trail sign gives the drive somewhere to finish.

More markers nearby

• The Ortega-Vigare Adobe — steps away
• Old Mill — 2.0 mi
• Governor Stoneman Adobe, Los Robles — 2.1 mi
• Savannah Memorial Park — 2.5 mi