Old Saint Mary's Cathedral
- Year
- 1854
- Style
- Gothic Revival
- City
- San Francisco, CA
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Old St. Mary's Cathedral was built in 1854 at California Street and Grant Avenue in what is now Chinatown, raised by Chinese laborers using brick shipped around Cape Horn and granite cut in China. Dedicated by Bishop Joseph S. Alemany — by then San Francisco's first archbishop — at Christmas Midnight Mass 1854, it became the first cathedral of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and the first building in California constructed expressly to serve as a cathedral.
the building
Materials from two oceans. The bricks were shipped around Cape Horn and the granite was cut in China, then assembled by Chinese laborers — a supply chain reflecting San Francisco's position as a Pacific port town in the 1850s.
Founded by a Paulist priest. The parish began as a mission established by Father Henry Ignatius Stark; the cornerstone was set on July 17, 1853, at California and Dupont Streets by Bishop Joseph S. Alemany, who returned the next year, now as archbishop, to dedicate the finished building at Christmas Midnight Mass.
the style
The church was designed in the Gothic Revival style by William Craine and Thomas England, two of the earliest resident architects working in California — an early instance of Gothic Revival's pointed arches and verticality appearing in a young Gold Rush-era city.
More on Gothic Revivalthe architect
William Craine and Thomas England are documented as among the earliest resident architects in California; little else about their careers is recorded here beyond their work on Old St. Mary's.
significance
Old St. Mary's is a California Historical Landmark, was designated a San Francisco Landmark on April 11, 1968, and survived the 1906 earthquake and fire that destroyed much of the surrounding city.
nearby
- 555 California Street
- San Francisco Fire Department Engine Co. Number 2
- Commercial Union Assurance Building
- San Francisco Curb Exchange Building
- Italian American Bank
- Russ Building