Mission San Diego de Alcalá

The first of California's 21 missions, founded in 1769 — a working parish church with a small museum of early colonial history

Mission San Diego de Alcalá was the first of the 21 California missions founded by the Franciscan priest Junipero Serra in July 1769. The current white-walled adobe church at the base of Mission Valley — with its five-bell campanario, the most photographed element of the California mission system — dates from reconstructions in the 1780s and 1930s. It is still an active parish church.

The small museum attached to the church covers the mission's history and the broader California mission system without the sanitisation typical of earlier mission narratives — the impact on the Kumeyaay people, the 1775 uprising, and the post-secularisation period are addressed directly. The garden and cemetery contain the remains of Father Jayme and other early mission figures.

The mission is in Mission Valley, accessible from the Mission Valley trolley stop and surrounded by suburban shopping centers — the dissonance is part of the experience. The drive-in from Old Town takes fifteen minutes.

things to do sight history
A story
The mission was moved to its current location in 1774, five years after founding, because the original site near the harbour was inconveniently close to the Spanish fort and had poor agricultural land. The new site in the valley had better water and farming conditions but was also closer to the Kumeyaay settlements whose residents the mission was intended to convert. Father Luis Jayme was killed in a Kumeyaay uprising at the mission in 1775 — the first Christian martyr in California — and the mission was burned. The current structure dates from the 1780s reconstruction.