The Mission - Where San Francisco Began

The Mission - Where San Francisco Began

Photo: Poshotenk, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)

A stop on San Francisco, District by District, a free self-guided tour.

Long before the city, the Yelamu Ohlone had a village called Chutchui near a lagoon here. In 1776 Spanish friars founded Mission San Francisco de Asis, known as Mission Dolores for a nearby creek, and baptized thousands of Native people, many of whom died of disease and hard labor at the mission.

After the Gold Rush, the old mission lands filled with racetracks, pleasure gardens and then homes for Irish and German working families. In 1906 the fire that swept toward the Mission was stopped at 20th Street, saving its southern blocks. From the 1940s on, families from Mexico and Central and South America made the Mission the heart of Latino San Francisco, and murals tell that story on hundreds of walls. Since the 1990s the district has been reshaped again by the tech boom.

Take BART to 16th Street Mission and walk four blocks west. The mini tour heads south to 24th Street and takes about two hours.

Getting here: From the Castro, walk east on 16th or 17th Street to Dolores Street, about 15 minutes.

Did you know?: Mission Dolores's adobe chapel, finished in 1791, is the oldest intact building in San Francisco, and its walls are about four feet thick.

Photo op: Stand across Dolores Street to frame the small white adobe chapel beside the much larger, ornate basilica built in 1918.

More on Wikipedia: Mission District, San Francisco · Mission San Francisco de Asis · Ohlone

Stops on this tour

  1. Ferry Building and the Embarcadero - Where the City Met the World
  2. Financial District and Jackson Square - Gold Rush on the Old Shoreline
  3. Chinatown - The Neighborhood That Refused to Move
  4. North Beach and Telegraph Hill - Little Italy and the Beats
  5. Fisherman's Wharf - Italian Boats and Old Ships
  6. Nob Hill and Russian Hill - Cable Cars, Mansions and the Great Fire
  7. The Presidio - Two Centuries Guarding the Golden Gate
  8. Japantown and the Fillmore - Two Communities, One Neighborhood
  9. Haight-Ashbury - From Victorian Suburb to Summer of Love
  10. Golden Gate Park - Sand Dunes Turned Into a Park
  11. The Castro - A Neighborhood That Became a Movement
  12. The Mission - Where San Francisco Began
  13. Civic Center - Domes, Charters and Protest
  14. South of Market - From Rincon Hill to the Tech Boom