MISSION LA PURISIMA CONCEPTION, La Purisima Mission (State) Historical Monument. Through Civilian Conservation Corps cooperation, the National Park Service was able to assist in the restoration of this historic old Spanish mission, founded in 1787. CCC enrollees, working much as did their Indian prototypes when the mission was founded, made the adobe bricks and roof tiles by hand.

The country's State parks and historic sites, and its inter-State, county, and metropolitan parks, supplement the national parks, both in the field of preservation and in providing recreational opportunities.

In 1936 Congress authorized the National Park Service to make "a study of the park, parkway, and recreation-areas programs in the United States," and to aid the States and their political sub-divisions in developing their parks. Although no funds were appropriated to implement this act, it was possible to carry on exceedingly important improvement work on these non-Federal areas through CCC camps. Restoration of La Purisima Mission was one of the outstanding reconstruction works made possible through the CCC program. Since Federal funds were involved, the National Park Service supervised this work, but it had no administrative control over the State areas. Of the approximately 3,100 camp-years of CCC work done under the supervision of the Service, 880 were on areas of the National Park System and 2,234 on non-Federal park and recreational areas. When the CCC program ended, it was estimated that the work accomplished in the country-wide park preservation field in the 10 years of its existence was equal to what might have been accomplished in 50 years without such help and under the then-existing financial conditions. (Photograph by George A. Grant.)