Misión San Bruno


The short-lived Jesuit mission of San Bruno was established in 1684 on the Baja California Peninsula near the Gulf of California, in colonial Mexico of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The Mission was located at. The location of this mission should not be confused with the location of the present day town of San Bruno which is located about to the north.
The site is about north of the later site of the town of Loreto, in present-day Loreto Municipality, Baja California Sur state, Mexico'

History

In 1683, the Spanish admiral Isidro de Atondo y Antillón and the Jesuit missionary Eusebio Francisco Kino were forced to abandon an attempted settlement and mission at La Paz because of hostilities with the native Pericúes and Guaycura. In 1684, they moved north to the central portion of the peninsula, and selected a site for a settlement at the Cochimí settlement of Teupnon, near the mouth of a substantial arroyo about north of the present day city of Loreto. The date was October 7, 1684, the Feast of San Bruno.
Mission work was begun with about 400 local Cochimi Indians and exploratory expeditions into the surrounding region were undertaken, including the first land crossing of the Baja California Peninsula by Europeans. However, shortages of water and imported food supplies and problems of illness forced the abandonment of San Bruno in May 1685, leaving Baja California again entirely in native hands until the first permanent Jesuit mission was established at Misión de Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó in 1697.
The San Bruno experience is documented in the letters and reports of Atondo, Kino, and other participants. A few crumbling walls of the uncompleted mission and fortress are all that remain of the San Bruno Mission.