By Elizabeth Lyons

San Gabriel – Imagine living in the old days of dirt roads, no electricity, making rope by hand, making buildings out of dirt and straw that will last to even to today’s time, hundreds of years later.

Visiting a local historic landmark may not sound exciting to a few people, until they visit a site like San Gabriel Mission where you can imagine seeing the Gabrieleno-Tongva Indians and other people in the early mission era simply going about their daily tasks of making adobe bricks for buildings, making rope by hand, planting food crops, and creating clay pots that will be used in kitchens to help cook food needed to survive!

Visitors at San Gabriel Mission’s History Day on Saturday, Dec. 4, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., will find a few people re-enacting those kinds of trades in the early mission era. The exciting part, according to one re-enactor, is that “visitors in some of the demonstrations will actually participate and make a clay pot, a few feet of rope, an adobe brick, and help a blacksmith make metal objects needed years ago.”

This event is planned as an opportunity for the public to interact with historians in an informal setting so that everyone can share information and learn more about history, said a mission bouncy castle for sale spokesperson. And, visitors can see the mission church, museum, grounds, Indian house, and mission building models of all 21 missions in California on a self-guided tour.

Mission History Day was started on June 4, 2005 so that, once a month on a Saturday, visitors can learn more about mission history: people, cultures, events, buildings, artwork, artifacts, plant life and more.  Some months a contest is scheduled. Contests have been mission model buildings, art, photography, and history challenges.

Persons age 17 and younger must be with a parent or guardian age 18 or older.

Admission fee is $3 for age six to 17, $5 for age 18-61, $4 for seniors age 62 and older, and age five and younger is free. A benefit of attending the mission’s History Day is that there is no extra charge to participate and watch the re-enactors, announced a re-enactor.  “What visitors make they can take home, except for the adobe bricks that will stay to help repair a wall at the mission,” emphasized re-enactor and historian Klaus Duebbert.

Free self-parking is available on a first-come basis in the church lot at the intersection of Mission Road and Junipero Serra Drive or on nearby streets. The address is 427 S. Junipero Serra Dr., San Gabriel, CA 91776, and the telephone number is 626-457-3048. San Gabriel Mission was founded on Sept. 8, 1771 and is the fourth oldest of 21 missions in California.