Access San FranciscoRide over two hills, then watch the fog come under the bridge.
The bell tower and curved walls of the basilica at Mission Dolores against a deep blue sky
THE CITY'S OLDEST BUILDING, IN ITS SUNNIEST NEIGHBORHOOD

Mission Dolores and the Mission District

The adobe mission chapel of 1791, built by Ohlone labor and the oldest intact structure in San Francisco, beside its basilica and cemetery, at the edge of the Mission District's murals, taquerias and hilltop park.

Photo: Almonroth, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

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No. 1What you are looking at

Mission Dolores and the Mission District

Level

The lawns of Mission Dolores Park under a clear sky
The lawns of Mission Dolores Park under a clear skyWikipediholicRat, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
  1. 1
    The adobe chapelCompleted in 1791, with four-foot adobe walls, redwood beams and a ceiling painted with Ohlone designs.
  2. 2
    The basilicaThe larger church of 1918 beside it, made a minor basilica in 1952.
  3. 3
    The cemetery and gardensThe oldest cemetery in the city, with the unmarked graves of some 5,000 Native Californians.
  4. 4
    Dolores ParkA hillside park two blocks south, with views over the Mission to downtown and the Bay.
  5. 5
    Balmy AlleyA single alley off 24th Street lined with murals since the early 1970s.
  6. 6
    Valencia and 24th streetsThe district's main streets for food, shops and murals.
No. 2The sight in full

Reading the place

Why it matters

Mission Dolores is where the city began as a community. The Spanish founded the Presidio at the Golden Gate in 1776, and on October 9 that year the Franciscan missionaries Francisco Palóu and Pedro Benito Cambón dedicated a small chapel a few miles south, the Mission San Francisco de Asís, named for Francis of Assisi. It came to be called Mission Dolores after a nearby creek, the Arroyo de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores. Its adobe church, finished in 1791, is the oldest intact building in San Francisco.

Mission Dolores Park at sunset, downtown on the horizon
Mission Dolores Park at sunset, downtown on the horizonJu13serv, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

The mission is also a place of loss. It was built to bring in Spanish settlers and convert the Ohlone, and it was the Ohlone who built it. Disease and hardship killed thousands of them here, and the mission cemetery holds the unmarked graves of about 5,000 Native Californians, Ohlone and Miwok people among them.

The adobe church

Downtown's towers above the palms of Mission Dolores Park
Downtown's towers above the palms of Mission Dolores ParkTony Webster, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Construction began in 1788. Ohlone laborers made 36,000 adobe bricks, and by 1790 the walls were up, plastered and whitewashed. The finished church has adobe walls four feet thick, roof beams of redwood, and a ceiling painted with traditional Ohlone designs in vegetable dyes. At its peak, around 1810 to 1820, about 1,100 Native people lived at the mission, which ran huge herds of sheep and cattle across what is now the Mission District and far beyond.

After Mexico took control of California, the missions were secularized from 1834 and lost their lands, and by 1842 only eight Native Americans still lived here. The little church came through the 1906 earthquake damaged but standing; the brick parish church of 1876 beside it was destroyed, and firefighters blew up buildings across the street to keep the fire from reaching the mission.

The basilica and the cemetery

Picnickers across the lawns of Mission Dolores Park, downtown on the horizon
Picnickers across the lawns of Mission Dolores Park, downtown on the horizonAlexwennerberg, Wikimedia Commons, CC0

The large church next door, with its twin towers, was built in 1918 to replace the parish church lost in 1906, given its elaborate churrigueresque ornament in a remodeling of 1926, and made a minor basilica by Pope Pius XII in 1952. Beside the old chapel, the cemetery is the oldest in the city and one of only four burial grounds left within the city limits. Among its gardens are native plants of the kind that grew here in the 1790s, a rose garden and an Ohlone ethnobotanical garden, and beneath it lie the unmarked graves of the Native people who lived and died at the mission.

The small white adobe chapel of Mission Dolores beside the towers of the basilica
The small white adobe chapel of Mission Dolores beside the towers of the basilicaLigocsicnarf89, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

The chapel, the cemetery and the basilica are part of a working parish of the Archdiocese of San Francisco; be quiet inside and respect services.

The Mission District

Around the mission spreads the Mission District, one of the city's oldest and most vivid neighborhoods. In the nineteenth century it was the land of Californio ranchos and then of working-class immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy and Scandinavia; Central American families settled from the 1910s, and from the 1950s Mexican immigrants predominated. For a quarter of a century, from 1865 to 1891, two blocks near Mission and Valencia streets were Woodward's Gardens, a pleasure ground with a conservatory and a zoo. It lies east of Twin Peaks in a warm, sunny pocket of the city's weather, and on a clear day it is often the warmest place in San Francisco.

A crowd on the sunny slope of Mission Dolores Park
A crowd on the sunny slope of Mission Dolores ParkFASTILY, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Its murals are famous. On Balmy Alley, a single block between 24th and 25th streets, murals have covered almost every fence and garage door since the early 1970s, when the artists Patricia Rodriguez and Graciela Carrillo, who became the collective Las Mujeres Muralistas, painted their first there. 24th Street, the heart of the Calle 24 Latino Cultural District, and Valencia Street are the district's main streets for food and shops, and the Mission is where the Mission burrito was born.

Dolores Park

Mission Dolores Park full on a warm day, palms and houses behind
Mission Dolores Park full on a warm day, palms and houses behindFASTILY, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Two blocks south of the mission, Mission Dolores Park climbs the slope between 18th and 20th streets. Its upper, southern half looks out over the Mission to downtown, the Bay and the hills beyond, and on a sunny weekend it fills with thousands of people. The Muni Metro J Church streetcar line runs along its western edge, on its own right of way through the park.

How to visit

The mission is at Dolores and 16th streets, a short walk from the 16th Street Mission BART station (the district has a second station at 24th Street), and the J Church streetcar stops nearby; see getting around. The mission sets its own visiting arrangements for the chapel, cemetery and basilica; check them before you go. Allow an hour for the mission and much of an afternoon for the district, its murals and a meal. The Mission's flat streets are easy walking; Dolores Park and the streets west of it rise steeply toward Twin Peaks.

Dolores Street beside the park, palms along its median
Dolores Street beside the park, palms along its medianKylelovesyou, Wikimedia Commons, CC0

For the neighborhood as a place to stay, see where to stay. Murals are best looked at in daylight, and many are on the walls and garages of people's homes, so be considerate when you photograph them.

Myths and facts

The carved front and balcony of the old Mission Dolores chapel, the basilica tower beside it
The carved front and balcony of the old Mission Dolores chapel, the basilica tower beside itLigocsicnarf89, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

The name Dolores does not refer to the chapel but to the creek, Our Lady of Sorrows Creek, beside which the mission stood. The mission's graves are not all of settlers: most of the people buried here are Native Californians whose graves are unmarked. And while Junípero Serra, the founder of the California missions, is recorded as saying mass here while the church was under construction, he did not found this mission; Palóu and Cambón did.

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