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Old Mission Dolores, 16th and Dolores
Dating back to 1791, Mission Dolores is the oldest building in San Francisco. This was the sixth of the 21 missions along the El Camino Real, linking Mexico with Sonoma, California. Spain secularized the missions in 1834 and Mission Dolores was used as a hotel, dance hall, and a brewery until reacquired by the Catholic Church in 1857. The four-foot-thick walls were constructed with 36,000 handmade adobe bricks made by the Ohlone Indians. Two dozen years later the Ohlone had been wiped out due to the imported European diseases. In 2003 an archaeologist discovered an Ohlone mural, that had been hidden behind the Mission's altarpiece for over 200 years.
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