Mission San Francisco Solano

The Story

Father José Altimira, a young friar unhappy at Mission Dolores, raised the cross at Sonoma on July 4, 1823, with the backing of the Mexican governor but without the approval of his own church superiors. His plan was to close Dolores and San Rafael and move everyone north. The bishop's representatives overruled that, but they let the new mission stand. It is the only one of the 21 founded under Mexican rule rather than Spanish, and the only one founded without church permission first.

Altimira's harshness drove the Coast Miwok, Pomo, Wappo, and Patwin people of the community to revolt in 1826, and he fled. Under Father Buenaventura Fortuni the mission stabilized, and the adobe chapel standing today was built in 1841 by General Mariano Vallejo after secularization. Above its altar is the Eye of Heaven, an opening that lets light fall on the sanctuary.

Sonoma's plaza just outside became the site of the Bear Flag Revolt on June 14, 1846, when settlers declared California a republic. The mission was damaged in the 1906 earthquake and later restored. It is now California Historical Landmark No. 1 in the state's numbering of the missions and part of Sonoma State Historic Park, operating as a museum rather than a parish.

Church Recognition

Mission San Francisco Solano was founded on July 4, 1823 by Fr. José Altimira. It is the twenty-first of the twenty-one missions of Alta California, and today it is museum in sonoma state historic park.

The mission was built by Native Californians, and the Church has publicly acknowledged the coercion and harm that mission life involved. That history is told in full on the California Mission Trail page, and it belongs to this place as much as its founding date does.

Go Deeper

The last and northernmost mission, and the only one founded after Mexican independence.

This mission is one of the twenty-one on the California Mission Trail, the twenty-first to be founded. The trail page carries the history of the chain as a whole, including the Church's own reckoning with it.