George Marston Role In The Preservation Of Presidio Hill

The arrival of George Marston in San Diego in 1902 during American settlement and his sighting of Presidio Hill is what led him to preserve the site to showcase its historical significance to future generations. According to the San Diego History Center, “George Marston was one of the great community servants in the history of San Diego” (George White Marston). Marston was a leading advocate in San Diego for his contributions he made to city planning and constructions of city park. Marston contributed to the construction of Balboa park and also developed an urban plan which guided the city in the route for growth. As a religious man, he was influenced by the Social Gospel movement and strongly believed in the bring back nature through preservation.

John Nolen was a city planner and landscape architect in Cambridge, Massachusetts and had previously worked with Marston in other projects. When Marston requested Nolen to give him landscaping and planning advice, Nolen immediately came over with such interest of the many possibilities for the project of preserving Presidio hill. When Nolen first saw the site of Presidio Hill in 1925, “He recommended a tract of forty acres as a more suitable landscape unit” (Hennessey, Junipero Serra Museum). Nolen also mentioned to Marston that, “A building was needed at the top of the hill to serve as a monument and to set the tone of the park” (Hennessey, Junipero Serra Museum). When Nolen set sight on the surrounding area of Presidio Hill, he saw the potential of the area where Presidio Hill lied and knew that it needed to have a monument dedicated to the history of Presidio hill. Because of his experience as a landscape architect and his vision for the preservation project of Presidio Park inspired to George Marston to hire a leading local architect to design a museum that would be the monument. William Templeton Johnson was hired to design what would be a museum to a major symbol in the Presidio Park. Johnson experience in designing Spanish Colonial and Mission-style architecture lead to him design the museum with inspiration of

During Spanish control of Presidio Hill, a key component for their method of colonization was building missions church that would teach the local native population of the religion of Catholicism. The first mission of the nine total Father Serra established was, “On July 16, (...) a crude church meant to serve both the Spanish colonist and begin Catholic outreach to local natives” (San Diego Mission). As a working priest, he tried to establish as many missions as possible in California in spreading the word of God to the population. Having established previous missions in Mexico, he was very passionate and determined of his role in the colonization of the Spanish. The establishment of this particular mission is significant to history of San Diego because it still stand today and serves the community of San Diego. But to certain circumstances, it only remained at its original site for five years after Father Luis Jayme proposed to move the mission six miles east (Present location) where it lied near the San Diego River and a Kumeyaay village. The newly constructed was unfortunately burned down by a native uprising in 1775 after the Native Americans or Diegueno (what the Spanish called “converted” Indians) were agitated