Mission Dolores: A step back to the 18th-Century birth of the city
Mission Dolores may attract smaller crowds than Coit Tower and the Ferry Building, two other historic landmarks, but it makes those two San Francisco icons seem modern. The 1791 mission is the oldest building in San Francisco—the sixth of 21 missions founded by Father Junipero Serra—and California’s oldest intact mission.
The first mass was led by one of Serra’s contemporaries under a makeshift shelter nearby, five days before the Declaration of Independence signing in 1776. The mission was formally founded later that year and it’s remained an active parish ever since—for nearly 250 years.
The mission hosts visitors from around the world. After paying $5 ($3 for seniors and students) at the gift shop, you’ll step into the Old Mission. Little has changed in two-plus centuries (it sustained minimal damage in the 1906 Quake). The four-foot-thick adobe walls, redwood log ceiling and 1796 gold-leaf alter are all original to the building.
After admiring this rare glimpse into 18th-Century California, walk over to the “new” basilica, built in 1918. It’s several times larger, with bell towers that rise high above the three-story residential buildings in the neighborhood. Unlike the spare interior of the Old Mission, this marble palace of devotion is full of architectural flourishes, mosaics, candles, and a row of stained glass windows that depict all of California’s missions.
Step out to the passageway between the two churches, where you can admire a diorama of the mission, based on how it looked in 1791. Notice that it’s surrounded only by barren hills; San Francisco was a rural outpost back then. Also in the passageway are illustrations of the mission and its long-ago residents, including Native Americans, and photos of John Paul II’s visit here in 1987, when he blessed AIDS victims.
Next you’ll step into a one-room museum filled with books, paintings, candlesticks, hand bells and other artifacts related to the mission, plus a sculpture of St. Francis of Assisi—San Francisco’s patron saint and namesake—by Benny Bufano.
The last part of the mission accessible to visitors is a small cemetery, as conducive to contemplation as the two churches. On a web of footpaths between rosebushes and trees are the tombstones of pre-1900 mission residents. (They are not limited to the pious, as they include Charles and Belle Cora, the Gold Rush era’s most notorious gambler and madam.) Most prominent is an oversized statue of Junipero Serra, founder of the missions, although he is buried at Mission San Carlos in Carmel, the only other mission where he officiated.
Mission Dolores’ influence extends to the names of the Mission District (San Francisco’s most populous neighborhood) that surrounds it; nearly Dolores Park; and the Mission District’s two most prominent streets, Mission and Dolores. Along with the Presidio, the mission is where San Francisco was born, and a visit is intriguing even if you aren’t Catholic or a history buff.
HelloSanFrancisco Tip: If you wish to attend mass, they’re conducted daily in the Old Mission (7:30 a.m.) and the Basilica (9 a.m.), as well as Saturdays at 5 p.m. in the Old Mission.
Posted by Bob Cooper
