Significant Dates & Events
History
Established in 1926
In 1923, during the second State Covenant Conference, a “land committee” was appointed to find a property suitable for a summer camp. Throughout the next two years, the committee searched for property around the Santa Cruz area. After time searching, 45 acres in the Santa Cruz Mountains, was purchased for $6,000 by the Swedish Evangelical Missionary Association of California from the Houghton Family. The purchase was made with the purpose of having a permanent place to hold summer conferences, ultimately expanding to its current 200 acres.
The Mission Springs name was suggested by Miss Carolyn Engstrom of Oakland. Miss Engstrom said, “The folks interested in this place are Mission Friends, and the purpose of the Summer Conference to be held here is to work for missions, home and foreign, as well as to make people ‘Mission Minded’. Then too, we have a spring of crystal clear water on the grounds, a spring which will never run dry. Remembering that the followers of Christ should be springs or ‘rivers of living water’, I do not think we can find a better name for this place than “Mission Springs”