Electronic images of or associated with Mission San Fernando Rey de España, (my work place in Southern California), can be found across a wide swath of sites, collections, and other online resources. Beginning with the c.1880 work of Carleton E. Watkins, this original San Fernando Valley locale has long been a popular destination for photographers and other visitors whose imaging efforts have persevered and proliferated. One of the more robust and most accessible digital archives of Mission San Fernando photographs can be rediscovered within the Seaver Center Collection. The following are a few selections from this wonderfully public and historic accumulation via the excellent Natural History Museum of Los Angeles website.
"Maps - Missions of California - San Fernando. Survey of lands by Henry Hancock in February, 1860. Lands confirmed to J.S. Alemany, Bishop. Tract contains 76 84/100 acres." The original of this document pre-dates the Mission San Fernando 'photographic' era.
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"San Fernando Mission. 5x7 Glass neg renumbered" While this description is fairly typical of many online collections or catalogs, this is actually one of the better electronic reproductions from the initial set of Mission San Fernando photographs done by Watkins c.1880. This and the other four or five images that comprise the original sub-collection created by the illustrious San Francisco-based photographer have been widely distributed, copied and collected, but rarely acknowledged with proper credit.
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"Mission San Fernando. Man, children & baby carriage; horse in background. 5x7 Glass Neg. renumbered" Another typically poor attempt to describe an original C.E. Watkins image from his c.1880 visit to San Fernando. It is highly likely that Watkins trained in to the newly-opened San Fernando station, and made his way to the Mission site (a distance of about 1½ miles) via horse and buggy with an assistant and a comparatively large cargo of equipment. This is an historically significant image because it was the first to illustrate the iconic, 21-arch Convento building which was completed c.1820 and remains extant, as well as being perhaps one of the very few, (or only), photographs of the original Mission workshop buildings with the roofs still intact and the walkway columns still standing.
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"California - San Fernando Mission 1903--California-Los Angeles County-Los Angeles -Los Angeles -Mission San Fernando, Rey de Espana ---View down the front corridor of San Fernando Mission. Titled 'Through the Arches of a Corridor in San Fernando Mission' and included in the Frederic Hamer Maude (1858-1959) Collection, ca.1890-1920." An exceptional collection by an important photographer, the catalog entries and descriptions of Maude's contributions to the institutional memory of Mission San Fernando are documented much better than those of C. Watkins. This perspective from within the archway looks generally eastward, and includes an original fountain and a long-gone structure that were both within the area that was redeveloped in the mid-1920s into Brand Park (Memory Garden).
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