Misión San Vicente Ferrer

Mission San Vicente was founded in August 1780 by the Dominican missionaries Miguel Hidalgo and Joaquin Valero among the Paipai Indians of northwestern Baja California, Mexico.

San Vicente was one of the largest and most important of the Dominican missions, because of its fertile land, abundant water, and important location on the missions' Camino Real. It may have been even more important as an early military headquarters, charged with subduing the local groups and repelling assaults from the more warlike nations on the lower Colorado River.

As at other Baja California missions, the native population diminished under the impact of Old World diseases, the political climate became less favorable to the missions under an independent Mexico after 1821, and by 1833 the mission was abandoned.

The mission was built in a place that is now called "LLano Colorado" or "Red Plain" because of the color of the volcanic rocks there. Today this land is cultivated during certain seasons and grows wheat and barley.

Among the flora the missionaries found near the site would have been chamomile, ceanothus, yucca, mesquite, brushwood, oak, and juniper. The animals and birds that lived in the region were squirrel, mole, beaver, shrew-mouse, coyote, puma, deer, woodpeckers, white-winged doves, owl, and wild ducks, among others.

The agricultural production consisted of corn, bean, wheat, and barley crops, as well as different fruits and vegetables. The mission also had flocks of sheep and goats, herds of cattle, horses and mules.

...
Wikipedia