In downtown Ventura, this archaeological site preserves the location of the first outpost and operations center used while Mission San Buenaventura was being built, with the chapel standing just outside the mission’s walled garden. Excavations beginning in 1974 uncovered rock foundations, the mission aqueduct, painted wall sections, and later evidence of the orchard wall, early county civic buildings, and Indigenous occupation. The area’s history reaches far beyond the mission period: people lived in the region for at least 10,000 to 12,000 years, and nearby Shisholop Village was a Chumash settlement linked by tomols to the Channel Islands. Protected today as a public open space, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.