Portal:San Francisco Bay Area/Selected article/95

Mission San José is a Spanish mission located in the present-day city of Fremont, California. It was founded on June 11, 1797 by the Franciscan order and was the fourteenth Spanish mission established in California. The mission is the namesake of the Mission San José district of Fremont, which was an independent town subsumed into the city when it was incorporated in 1957.

The Mission entered a long period of gradual decline after secularization in 1834, though numerous restoration efforts in the intervening periods have reconstructed many of the original structures. The old mission church remains in use as a chapel of Saint Joseph Catholic Church, a parish of the Diocese of Oakland. The museum also features a visitor center, museum, and slide show telling the history of the mission. (more...)