12/16/2004

California State Office of Historic Preservation

On July 4, 1823, Padre José Altamira founded this northernmost of California's Franciscan missions, the only one established in California under independent Mexico. In 1834, secularization orders were carried out by Military Commandant M. G. Vallejo, and Mission San Francisco Solano became a parish church serving the Pueblo and Sonoma Valley until it was sold in 1881."