Thursday, November 15, 2007

Mark's Trip to Mexico - Part 7, Bautista

On the way back to the States, we took the back road highway through some small, historic towns. We stopped in Arizpe to see the Spanish mission of “Nuestra Señora de la Asunción.”

It was founded by the Jesuits and constructed around the 1740s with fired brick, stone, and lime mortar. It is one of few such structures with a separate bell tower and the pyramid that caps it was added sometime between 1879 and 1910.

In 1775 an expedition of settlers was formed, headed by captain Juan Bautista de Anza, which explored and opened one of the routes to present-day California, establishing the city of San Francisco. We saw the remains of Juan Bautista in a glass-covered tomb in the floor of the church.

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