History
Mission San Francisco de Asis, commonly known as Mission Dolores, was founded in 1776 on the shore of a small lagoon, the Laguna de los Dolores, on the San Francisco peninsula. The mission was the sixth of the twenty-one Franciscan missions established in Alta California and the principal religious establishment of the northern frontier of the territory. The surviving mission church, completed in 1791 under Father Francisco Palou, is the oldest intact building in the city of San Francisco and one of the oldest in northern California.
Architecturally the church is a Spanish Colonial mission, built of thick sun-dried adobe brick produced on site by Ohlone neophyte labor under Franciscan supervision. The walls, approximately four feet thick at the base, are set on a stone footing and finished with lime plaster derived from local shell. The roof is framed in heavy hand-hewn timber carried in from the inland forests and is finished with red clay barrel tile. The interior preserves painted ceiling decoration applied by Ohlone craftsmen using natural pigments, one of the earliest surviving programs of indigenous decorative painting in California.
The church survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake while the adjacent late-nineteenth-century brick parish church beside it collapsed, an event that established the seismic competence of well-built thick-walled adobe under certain conditions and that secured Mission Dolores's standing as a foundational survivor of the city's pre-modern history. The mission cemetery beside the church preserves the burials of a substantial portion of the Ohlone and Spanish-Mexican community of early San Francisco.
The mission church continues as an active Catholic parish and is open to the public as a historic site, with the original adobe church preserved beside the larger early-twentieth-century Mission Dolores Basilica. Within the broader California adobe tradition, Mission San Francisco de Asis is the principal eighteenth-century mission survivor of the northern frontier, documenting the late-Spanish-period transmission of the lime-plastered adobe and tile-roofed church type from southern California up to the entrance of the San Francisco Bay.
Common questions
What is Mission San Francisco de Asís?
Mission San Francisco de Asís, also known as Mission Dolores, is a historic Spanish Colonial Catholic church complex in San Francisco, California. Operated by the Archdiocese of San Francisco, it contains the 1791 adobe chapel — the oldest intact structure in San Francisco — and the 1918 Mission Dolores Basilica.
When was Mission San Francisco de Asís built?
Mission San Francisco de Asís was founded on October 9, 1776, by Frs. Francisco Palóu and Pedro Benito Cambón. The adobe chapel was completed in 1791, and the adjacent Mission Dolores Basilica was constructed in 1918.
Where is Mission San Francisco de Asís located?
Mission San Francisco de Asís is located in the Mission District of San Francisco, California.
Can you visit Mission San Francisco de Asís?
Mission San Francisco de Asís remains an active church complex operated by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. Visitor access is associated with its role as an operating parish and historic site, including the 1791 adobe chapel and the 1918 basilica.
Why is Mission San Francisco de Asís historically significant?
The 1791 Mission Dolores adobe chapel is the oldest intact structure in San Francisco, and the Mission Dolores Basilica was designated a minor basilica by Pope Pius XII in 1952. The basilica replaced an 1876 brick parish church that was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.