The original adobe Mission structure is the smaller building at left, while the larger structure is a basilica completed in 1918 (the architectural style was influenced by designs exhibited at San Diego's Panama-California Exposition in 1915).
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Location in Central San Francisco
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Location | 320 Dolores Street San Francisco, California 94114 |
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Coordinates | 37°45′51.8″N 122°25′37.3″W / 37.764389°N 122.427028°WCoordinates: 37°45′51.8″N 122°25′37.3″W / 37.764389°N 122.427028°W |
Name as founded | La Misión de Nuestro Padre San Francisco de Asís |
English translation | The Mission of Our Father Saint Francis of Assisi |
Patron | Saint Francis of Assisi |
Nickname(s) | "Mission Dolores" |
Founding date | June 29, 1776 |
Founding priest(s) | Junípero Serra |
Founding Order | Sixth |
Military district | Fourth |
Native tribe(s) Spanish name(s) |
Ohlone Costeño |
Native place name(s) | Chutchui |
Baptisms | 6,898 |
Marriages | 2,043 |
Burials | 11,000= 5,000 (Europeans/Americans), 6,000 (Indians) |
Secularized | 1834 |
Returned to the Church | 1857 |
Governing body | Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco |
Current use | Parish Church |
Designated | 1972 |
Reference no. | #72000251 |
Official name: Site of original Mission Dolores chapel and Dolores Lagoon | |
Reference no. | 327-1 |
Designated | April 11, 1968 |
Reference no. | 1 |
Website | |
http://www.missiondolores.org |
Mission San Francisco de Asís, or Mission Dolores, is the oldest surviving structure in San Francisco and the sixth religious settlement established as part of the California chain of missions. The Mission was founded on June 29, 1776, by Lieutenant José Joaquin Moraga and Francisco Palóu (a companion of Junípero Serra), both members of the de Anza Expedition, which had been charged with bringing Spanish settlers to Alta (upper) California, and evangelizing the local Natives, the Ohlone.
The settlement was named for St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Franciscan Order, but was also commonly known as "Mission Dolores" owing to the presence of a nearby creek named Arroyo de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, meaning "Our Lady of Sorrows Creek." During the expedition of Juan Bautista de Anza, this site was identified by Pedro Font as the most suitable site for a mission in the San Francisco area.
The original Mission consisted of a fall structure dedicated on October 9, 1776, after the required church documents arrived. It was located near what is today the intersection of Camp and Albion Streets (according to most sources), about a block-and-a-half east of the surviving adobe Mission building, and on the shores of a lake (supposedly long since filled) called Laguna de los Dolores. A historical marker at that location depicts this lake, but whether it ever actually existed is a matter of some dispute. (Creek geologists Janet Sowers and Christopher Richard propose that the legendary lake is the result of misunderstandings of Juan Bautista de Anza's 1776 writings. According to their 2011 hydrological map, there were no lakes in the area, only creeks.)