The authorities had decided to establish there two nondescript settlements, a sort of cross between mission, pueblo, and presidio.

Captain Palma, the Yuma chief, whose devotions and piety had so delighted the good Father, was eager to have missions started, and constantly importuned the government to grant them.

Garces, therefore, went to Yuma again in 1779 to prepare the way, and in 1780 two of the hybrid affairs were inaugurated, one at what is now Fort Yuma, called Puerto de la Purisima Concepcion, after the little canyon hard by, so named by Garces previously, a canyon fifty feet deep and a thousand feet long; the other, about eight miles down, called San Pedro y San Pablo de Bicuner.

There were four padres; Garces and Barraneche at the upper station, and Diaz and Moreno at the lower.

Each place had eight or ten soldiers, a few colonists, and a few labourers.