SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : Mission Preserves Window on the Past

In a large sense, the Mission San Juan’s sprawling grounds have created an identity problem for the tourist attraction.

People think of the mission as a church because of its ornate 19th-Century chapel. They are drawn by the beauty of the mission grounds and its immaculate flower gardens.

But the Mission San Juan that officials want visitors to recognize is a museum--a snapshot of romantic early California during the mid-1800s.

“The mission is its own museum, the mission is the museum and its own greatest artifact,” said Ed Akins, volunteer coordinator for the Mission San Juan. “There is the potential for an incredible learning experience here because everything is so well preserved. The mission looks pretty much as it was 200 years ago.”

Mission officials plan to tap into that potential. A panel of advisers is being put together to help the mission become a better museum.

“We don’t want this to be a place where you come in the fourth grade and don’t come back until your child is in the fourth grade,” Akins said. “We’re on the verge of getting bigger and better.”

One area that will be developed is the mission’s living history program. Once a month, volunteers assume the role of a figure in the area’s past, such as an early Spanish governor of California.

Preliminary plans call for the program to take place twice per month. Rooms at the mission will be occupied by the 19th-Century characters who will go about their business as they did more than 100 years ago.

“The rooms will be alive with living history figures,” Akins said. “You can walk in and talk to them, ask questions about how they lived. It’ll be like slipping into a time warp.”

Other projects include sprucing up the current exhibits by repainting signs and updating instructional materials.

Advisory panel members will be experts in historical fields such as archeology, museum science and art history.