New Book Features Missions of Central California

MT. PLEASANT, S.C. - April 24, 2013 - PRLog -- New to Arcadia Publishing’s popular Images of America series is Missions of Central California by local, repeat author Robert A. Bellezza. This pictorial history boasts more than 200 vintage images and provides readers with a unique opportunity to reconnect with the history that shaped their community.

After the discovery of Alta California, the Spanish Crown charged the first Franciscan friars to enter into the New World through Lower Baja, with a succession of conquistadors, explorers, and soldiers, on a trail called El Camino Real or "The Royal Road." The settlement began in 1769 at Mission San Diego de Alcalá, a new port and military presidio with buildings of mud, brushwood and tule grass.

Fr. Junípero Serra, the legendary mission presidente and founding father of nine missions, traveled along a worn path lined today by symbolic bell markers leading to many remarkable, modern cities. After 1772, settlements were spread to California's central coast region, filling with native neophytes who became the residents and builders of all mission settlements. The Spanish missions had brought dramatic changes to California's landscape and forged the underpinnings of its earliest history, founded serendipitously with the American Revolution and birth of the United States.

Highlights of Missions of Central California include:
•   The Valley of Hungry Bears: Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa
•   Shores of Serenity: Mission San Buenaventura
•   The Golden Age of the Missions: Mission Santa Bárbara, Virgen y Mártir
•   California’s Missions Past and Present: Touring El Camino Real

Available at area bookstores, independent retailers, and online retailers, or through Arcadia Publishing at (888)-313-2665 or online.

Arcadia Publishing is the leading publisher of local and regional history in the United States.  Our mission is to make history accessible and meaningful through the publication of books on the heritage of America’s people and places.  Have we done a book on your town?  Visit www.arcadiapublishing.com.