Mission Dolores Chapel - Adobe From 1791

Mission Dolores Chapel - Adobe From 1791

Photo: Marco Zanoli (Sidonius), CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)

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

Step inside the small adobe chapel, completed in 1791 by Ohlone laborers who made some 36,000 adobe bricks. It is the oldest intact building in San Francisco, and it came through the 1906 earthquake while a newer brick church beside it collapsed. Look up at the ceiling beams, painted in red, white and ochre patterns drawn from Ohlone designs, and at the altar pieces brought from Mexico.

Beside the chapel is the mission cemetery, the oldest in the city. A few marked graves belong to early Californio leaders such as Luis Antonio Arguello and to Irish settlers, but most of the people buried here, an estimated 5,000 Ohlone, Miwok and other Native Californians, lie in unmarked graves, remembered today by a memorial and a reconstructed tule hut.

The towering church next door, now a basilica, was built in 1918. Check the mission's website for visiting hours and admission.

More on Wikipedia: 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