Spanish Missions:
Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Arizpe

Contemporary with the other Spanish mission churches "was one of fired brick, stone, and lime mortar erected by the Jesuits at Arizpe.  Its patroness is Nuestra Señora de la Asunción and construction began in the 1740s or perhaps slightly earlier.  It was dedicated more or less in its present form in 1756 during the administration of Father Carlos Rojas, who was at Arizpe from 1727 until the Jesuit expulsion in 1767.  The church has fired brick walls with stone rubble cores and is one of few such structures with a separate bell tower ever erected on the northern frontier.  The Arizpe tower, built in three tiers, was never finished with a cupola in colonial times.  The pyramid which caps it today was added sometime between 1879 and 1910.

"In the immediate aftermath of the Jesuit expulsion, Arizpe was turned over in 1768 to blue-robed friars from the Franciscan Province of Santiago de Jalisco, with Fray Juan Domínguez drawing the assignment, one which occupied him until 1780 when he was replaced by secular priest Miguel Elías González." (The Pimeria Alta, The Southwestern Mission Research Society)