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Building History

On 07/16/1769, Father Junipero Serra erected a cross to mark the new coastal landscape as Franciscan territory and as the place where "...he had planned that the chapel of the mission at San Diego was to stand, selecting a site which he regarded as most appropriate for the building of the city, 'within sight of the harbor.' It was only a rude structure, hands being few and weak--one of a few simple huts, roofed with tules, but a provisional church to serve until a better chapel could be erected. This was the formal beginning of the Mission San Diego de Alcala." This was the first of the 21 Franciscan missions in Californiam but it did not remain long at this harborside location. (See Clarence Alan McGrew, City of San Diego and San Diego County: The Birthplace of California, Volume I, Chicago and New York: American Historical Society, 1922], p. 11.)

Four years later another site, about five miles away, was selected that could provide a mission better water supplies. McGrew described the second mission complex in San Diego, its development begun in 1773: "It was in the summer of 1773 that the missionaries determined to select a grain field farther up the valley; where it was believed that more rain fell and where irrigation could be practiced. The site selected was that of the mission to which San Diegans now refer as the Old Mission. By the end of 1774 the mission had been moved there. It is interesting to note the character of the buildings, as described by Father Serra. First there was the church, made with poles and roofed with tules; then a house containing living rooms for the Fathers, a large warehouse, a house for shepherds and muleteers, a smithy, a house for servants, thirteen houses for Indians and a corral for horses." (See Clarence Alan McGrew, City of San Diego and San Diego County: The Birthplace of California, Volume I, Chicago and New York: American Historical Society, 1922], p. 15.)

Building Notes

Mission San Diego de Alcala was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, added 1970, Building #70000144.

Alteration

The current church was Mission San Diego's fifth, and was started in 1808. The important civic leader and department store owner, George W. Marston, (1850-1946), was involved with the restoration of the San Diego Franciscan Mission. At this time, the Mission churches were reconstructed and preserved in part so that later architects could derive inspiration from them. By the 1880s, architects would travel to the ruined missions, sketching them and observing their plans and proportions. It would be during the 1890s that a new Mission Revival Style would coalesce from the drawing boards of Anglo architects, billed as an indigenous Californian architectural expression.