This active Franciscan mission located on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation has been dubbed the 'Sistine Chapel of North America'. It was originally founded by a Spanish Jesuit Father Kino before 1700. Called the 'White Dove of the Desert', the structure is an impressive example of Spanish Colonial Mission architecture of the 18th century with domes, carvings, arches and flying buttresses. The walls and ceilings of the church are a classroom of religion and a feast for the eyes. St Francis Xavier is above the alter, Mary is in a side cove and St. Xavier depicted at his burial. Old doors and entrance latch are original. The church pews are smaller and have a scalloped wood back. there is a large cross on the hill above the mission seen through the arched wall. The Indian cemetery is just down the road. Through the arch in the courtyard you can see the cross up on the hill.
It sits on 14 acres deeded to the Roman Catholic diocese in an original grant signed by President Taft in 1910. You must remember that these 30,000 acres of New Mexico and Arizona was bought by paying the Mexican government $10 million in 1853 in the Gadsen Purchase to originally construct a transcontinental railway and make this area a part of the United States.
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