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Book #1:
Baja California Land of Missions
by David Kier
Updated in 2021 with revised information, latest printing in 2023:
Baja California Land of Missions, by David Kier.
This 5.5″ x 8.5″, 243-page work, is a detailed history of the activities by the Spanish Empire, commissioning several orders of Catholic priests, and others, attempting to colonize the peninsula of California between 1535 and 1855. All twenty-seven missions are detailed as well as the satellite visita outposts and the more obscure, little-known, associated sites.
Why the missions failed and what happened since they closed is also told. GPS waypoints for each mission and additional places of historic interest are provided. The mythical lost missions are detailed as well. Over 125 photographs, drawings and maps will visually take the reader to the missions as they were, and as they are now. A reference list of books plus detailed index will assist in further mission study or research. Email M & E Books at oldmissions@gmail.com for details.
Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2017
“Nothing defines California as significantly or emotionally as the missions and history of the old El Camino Real mission trail. The mission trail, and California history, starts almost a thousand miles south of the California border in Loreto Mexico, in Baja California; indeed, the California peninsula was the only California for at least 230 years before “Baja” was added to the name in 1769. The author, David Kier, does a remarkable job of chronicling the Jesuit, Franciscan, and Dominican missionaries and the missions they founded in Baja California. “Baja California Land of Missions” is superbly written and researched, with over a hundred photos, maps, and drawings. Kier’s summary of the nearly 200 missionaries who served in Baja California between 1683 and 1855, is a unique, and incredibly useful, historical resource. Designed to fit nicely in a pocket, or console compartment – this is a “must-have” guide for any one traveling the Baja Peninsula, especially for the adventurer and explorer who takes delight in veering off the pavement, and into the wild … and into the lives and dreams of men of the past.
In one slim volume David Kier has captured, not just the history of a place, but its heart as well.”
$29.95 The newest (2023) printing arrived on Jan. 31. No changes from the 2022 printing (The printing data was not updated and still reads Eleventh Printing March 2022, but in reality is the Twelfth Printing January 2023). I will date the book when I sign it for you.
$40.00 (1975 edition) from Desert Magazine’s editor and member of Erle Stanley Gardner’s many Baja expeditions, Choral Pepper tells the stories of all the missions, including ‘lost’ ones, as well as other stories in history. 5″ x 7″ 126 pages worn cover/ spine repaired with tape, but pages are clean.
