Mission San Francisco de Asís

1776

The mission was founded on October 9, 1776

Founded by the Franciscan priests Francisco Palóu and Pedro Benito Cambón, it was named San Francisco de Asís in honor of Francis of Assisi. It became known as Mission Dolores after the nearby creek, Arroyo de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores.

The chapel

The adobe chapel of 1791 is the oldest intact structure in San Francisco

Work on the adobe walls began in 1788, with Ohlone laborers making 36,000 bricks. The walls were four feet thick, the roof beams were redwood, and the ceiling showed traditional Ohlone designs painted in vegetable dyes.

36,000bricks made by Ohlone laborers

The mural

A mural painted by Ohlone artists in 1791 was rediscovered in 1910

The mural covers the entire rear wall behind the historic wooden altar. It was later covered up with wooden boarding, and it was rediscovered during a renovation in 1910.

22 by 20 feetthe size of the mural

The basilica

The basilica of 1918 replaced a brick church lost in 1906

A brick parish church built in 1876 was destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Work on the new church began in 1913, and the architect Willis Polk restored the adobe in 1917. Pope Pius XII made the church a minor basilica in 1952.

The cemetery

The cemetery holds the unmarked graves of about 5,000 indigenous people

When newly independent Mexico took control of Alta California in 1821, over 5,000 Native Americans had died from disease and other causes at the mission. The cemetery is the oldest in San Francisco, with grave markers dating between 1830 and 1898.