Mission San Diego de Alcalá, Spanish colonial mission in San Diego, United States
Mission San Diego de Alcalá is a mission station with church in San Diego, United States, showing colonial construction with adobe walls and a tower. A walled courtyard with plants separates the chapel from adjoining rooms where exhibition areas are located today.
Founded on July 16, 1769, by Friar Junípero Serra, this was the second Franciscan mission in the Californias, after San Fernando de Velicatá. The original church burned in a Kumeyaay uprising in 1775, in which Father Luis Jayme was killed. Serra returned in 1776 to rebuild, and the present church, the fifth on the site, dates from the early 19th century.
The mission and the surrounding land take their name from Saint Didacus of Alcalá, a 15th-century Spanish Franciscan known as San Diego. Father Luis Jayme, killed in the 1775 uprising and called California's first Christian martyr, lies entombed beneath the chancel floor. The church has served as a parish since 1941 and was named a minor basilica by Pope Paul VI in 1976.
The grounds lie several miles from downtown in a quiet residential neighborhood where parking is available. The site is mostly flat and main paths between church, courtyard and museum are accessible to wheelchairs.
The bell tower holds three bells, each in its own arched opening, as seen in photographs of the mission. The church standing today is the fifth on this site, built in the early 19th century after an earthquake destroyed its predecessor in 1803; the rebuilt church was finished in 1813.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 94,475 contributors worldwide.
