Mission San Xavier del Bac

Mission San Xavier del Bac rises bright white from the Sonoran Desert about 10 miles south of downtown Tucson, on the San Xavier District of the Tohono Oʼodham Nation. The Jesuit missionary Eusebio Francisco Kino founded the mission in 1692 at the Oʼodham village of Bac, and Franciscan friars built the present church between 1783 and 1797. Often called the finest example of Spanish colonial architecture in the United States, it is known as the White Dove of the Desert.

Inside, the church is crowded with painted and gilded saints, carved altarpieces and murals, the work of artisans whose names are largely lost. One of its two bell towers was never finished, and no one knows for certain why. Unlike most Spanish missions in the Southwest, San Xavier is still an active parish, run by Franciscans since 1913 and serving the Oʼodham community, and a restoration effort under way since the 1990s has brought its interior back to life. It draws about 200,000 visitors a year.

• Arizona
  The Grand Canyon State, admitted 1912 located in
• The Sonoran Desert
  The lush desert of the saguaro cactus located in
• Tohono Oʼodham Nation
  The Desert People of the Sonoran borderlands located in
• Tucson
  A Sonoran Desert city ringed by mountains near
• El Santuario de Chimayó
  New Mexico’s pilgrimage church of healing earth related
• San Antonio Missions
  Five Spanish colonial missions along the San Antonio River related