"The deeds you do may be the only sermon some persons will hear today"

When gold was discovered in California in 1849, a fortune-hungry horde poured into Yerba Buena, which recently had been renamed San Francisco. Practically overnight, the bayside settlement with a scant 450 inhabitants burgeoned to thousands. Many of the newcomers were Catholics, yet there was no church for them other than the Franciscan mission, three and a half miles from the docks.

Although Blessed Junípero Serra and his Franciscan brothers established the mission church of San Francisco de Asís, commonly known as Mission Dolores, in order to evangelize the Native Californian population, by the time of the California Gold Rush, it served primarily the local residents of Mexican and Iberian origin. Though mass was celebrated in Latin, the universal language of Roman Catholic liturgy, pastoral ministry and preaching were only in Spanish. Nor were services held on a regular schedule.

U.S. Military spokesmen from the Army and the Navy appealed to the bishops in Hawaii and Oregon, and to the Archbishop of Baltimore. The bishop of Portland in Oregon sent tw

o priests from the Pacific Northwest, and U.S. troops stationed at the Presidio built a small shanty to serve as a church.

While the City of San Francisco did not formally incorporate until 18 April 1850 and California did not become the thirty-first state of the Union until 9 September 1850, the twelfth of June 1849 witnessed the formal establishment of Saint Francis Parish. Five days later, on June 17th, Catholics gathered for the first parochial mass celebrated in California. As an official juridical entity, therefore, Saint Francis of Assisi Church antedates both the City of San Francisco and the State of California.

Within a short time, an adobe church replaced the wooden shack that U.S. Army personnel had built. The newly appointed Bishop of Monterey, Dominican friar Joseph Alemany, consecrated the new structure for Saint Francis Parish in 1851.

Bishop Alemany used the church as his cathedral for three years.

Saint Francis of Assisi Church, Vallejo Street, 1851In 1852, Bishop Alemany ordained Fr. John Quinn to the priesthood in the church of Saint Francis: the first presbyteral ordination in California.

With pastoral ministry and preaching being conducted in English, Spanish, French, and Italian, it soon became clear that the small church could not accommodate its rapidly growing congregation.

Parish leaders laid the cornerstone of a new church on October 2, 1859. In order to avoid interrupting the continuity of liturgical services, workers built the new church right over the old structure.Saint Francis of Assisi Church, looking down muddy Vallejo Street to the west.

The present Norman Gothic church, with its elegant twin campanile, was dedicated on 17 March 1860.

On 18 April 1906 at 5:13 AM, the earth trembled violently; the water mains of San Francisco crumbled. Shortly after the earthquake, devastating fires broke out all over the city consuming even the interior of Saint Francis Church. The mighty brick walls of the Church, however, together with its badly scorched towers, remained entirely intact.

After much consideration and careful study the diocese decided to rebuild a new church within the original walls. Engineers drew up the plans to support the floor and roof with steel girders. On 2 March 1919, the Catholic community of San Francisco rededicated the newly restored church.