The Franciscans began work in 1800 on an ambitious undertaking - a church that would match the frontier baroque glory of the celebrated Mission San Xavier del Bac not far to the north.  Under the direction of a master mason, a maestro de albanil, a crew of Indian and Spanish laborers laid five-foot thick cobblestone foundations that year, but construction ground to a halt as funds dried up.  Over the next few years they were able to add a few courses of adobe bricks, bringing the walls up to seven feet.  These were plastered inside and out and decorative handfuls of crushed brick were pressed into the wet plaster.

It was not until 1821 that work truly resumed.  An enterprising Franciscan, Father Juan Bautista Estelric, sold 4,000 head of the mission's cattle to a local rancher, Don Ignacio Perez, and with the first payment hired a new master and pushed the work ahead.  The walls were raised to 14 feet, but the rancher stalled on his payments and construction again ceased.  Two years later, Father Ramon Liberós, a persistent friar, finally got the rancher to pay his bill, and work resumed.  Within a few years the church was almost completed, although the bell tower was never capped with its dome.  The church must have been a striking landmark in the flat Santa Cruz Valley, with its embellished and painted facade and plaster walls embedded with crushed red brick.

The original cross-shaped plan for the church called for barrel vaults over the nave, transepts and sacristy.  Domes would cover the crossing and the bell tower.  Lack of funds forced the Franciscans to scale back their versions twice, first eliminating the transepts and later replacing the barrel vault over the nave with a flat roof and moving the dome over the sanctuary.  The bell tower dome was never built.

The interior was even more colorful, especially the sanctuary and altar.  As one entered the nave, the choir loft was directly overhead.  The baptistry was in a domed room beneath the bell tower.  On the walls, the rich imagery of Catholicism - Mexican baroque statuary, paintings of the apostles, carvings depicting the Stations of the Cross, symbols of the Virgin Mary - was designed to capture the imagination of converts to the faith.

The facade, or front of the church, rendered in bright colors to appeal to the Indians, was yellow tending toward pink originally.  Today, under the cornice below the window, some of the original color is still visible.  The half circle of the espadana, or pediment, is a careful reconstruction from an 1889 photograph.

The columns were painted red and the capitals, which could be lotus or papyrus flowers, were yellow with black markings.  You may be surprised to find Egyptian architecture in Southern Arizona, but these are undoubtedly imitations of Egyptian style capitals, introduced into Spain by the Moors and copied here from some Spanish building by the person who designed the facade.

The statue niches, a Roman introduction, were painted blue.  The two niches beside the window are Moorish because of their pointed arches.  The little corbels or shelves at the base of the niches brought the statues forward so they might be seen from a wider angle.

The tower section was treated as an individual unit of a complete whole.  It gives the appearance of strength and dignity.  The lower part was left plain, concentrating on the decorations on the bell arches and piers of the upper story.  The tower was built in three stories - the baptistry, the robing room, and the bell arches.  According to Frank Pinkley, the bell tower would have had a dome with a lantern on top and a cross similar to the sanctuary dome.  One can still see the holes where the scaffolding was pinned in the walls during the building process.  This also explains the square holes seen in the bell arch piers.

Although the bell tower arches appear to be in a state of ruin, they are almost in exactly the same conditions as when the church was abandoned in 1848, never having been completed.  The statue niches have scallop shell designs on the top.  The shells are symbols of the pilgrims of the Middle Ages traveling to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.  To prove they had been there they would find a scallop shell on the beach and stick it in their hat.

Although the bells in the tower are not original to Tumacácori, it was the pealing of similar bells that kept the mission community on schedule - signaling the faithful when it was time to eat, work, rest and worship.  And, most importantly, about the approach of raiding Indians.

Above the main entrance in the rear of the church one can see where the choir loft once stood.  The entry to the left, high on the wall, and the pillars which supported it are still in place.  The floor of the choir loft was probably bricks laid on pine.  Notice the differences below between the painting and what we see today!

Immediately to the right when you enter the church is a room where the sacred ceremony of baptism was performed.  Here adobe walls, nine feet thick with an inner rock core, support the massive bell tower above and form an almost tunnel-like entrance.  A stairway leads up to the tower and the entrance to the choir loft, as well as a trapdoor to the bell tower.  The baptistry features a domed ceiling with squinches (triangular pieces which allow a dome shape to be joined to a square or rectangular shape) in the four corners.  Only lime plaster was used on these walls.

Let the voice of Father Liberós tell what once took place in this room.

“In the year of our Lord 1825 on the eighth day of March, I, Father Ramon Liberós, Minister of this Mission of San José de Tumacácori, baptized a boy of about six years from the gentiles of the Papago nation, on whom I placed the name of Miguel and surname of Borboa.  Godparents were Francisco Zapata and Esmerencia Mesa, children of this mission, whom I advised of their spiritual relationship and other duties.”

The magnificent church nave, about 70 feet long, was the place reserved for the accommodation of the people.  Here Indian and Spanish settlers took their places at the holy Mass.  Notice that there are no pews.  The people stood or knelt during the services on a floor of broken brick covered with smooth lime plaster and painted red.  There are no transepts.  The church is in the form of a long hall, rather than a cross.  Lining the walls are six side altars where individuals lit candles and said specific prayers to statues of saints in the niches above.  On the east wall in the front of the nave is a pulpit which is elevated so the priest could stand there and be seen by the people. The stations of the cross were oval medallions set into the wet plaster on the side walls.  The walls were given two coats of lime plaster with a gypsum wash.

Life for the Pimas at Tumacácori may have been a mixed blessing.  Looking through their eyes in the early 1800s, the priest was most likely kind and friendly.  He might have tried to speak Piman and translate for both Indian and settler.  He provided food, protection, clothing and other gifts.  On the other hand, he was probably strict.  Prohibited conduct could result in verbal or physical punishment.  Whatever the trials or joys a day might bring, stepping into the nave most likely brought tranquility and color.  Imagine an early morning Mass with candles flickering throughout the church, sweet melodies form the choir and the priest chanting in his colorful robe.

The church was abandoned in 1848.  The roof was soon removed and local settlers used the original timber for construction elsewhere.  It was first replaced in 1921 and again in 1947 and 1978, but the nave was exposed to the elements for over sixty years.  Damage is extensive, but a closer look reveals a compelling story of life at Tumacácori.  Hundreds of people received communion.  Two priests, Fathers Carrillo and Gutierrez, who were buried on the gospel side of the steps leading up to the altar, taught literacy and celebrated Mass.  The replaced floor and holes in the walls tell of fortune hunters looking for Jesuit treasure that never existed.

Little is known of individual experiences within the church.  Original documentation gives only glimpses of what happened.  We can be certain of a few things, however ... there were hard times ... festive times ... holy times.

Ascending the steps leading up out of the nave, one enters the sanctuary, still adorned with its original paints, picture frames, and extensive stenciling.  The twelve picture frames on the walls were probably for paintings of the twelve apostles. The squinches (triangular pieces which allow a dome shape to be joined to a square or rectangular shape) on the dome also have pictures painted on them - the tower representing a tower of strength or the Holy Spirit, candle flame for the Holy Scripture or the light of life, a palm tree representing peace and a well with a hanging bucket representing the Scriptures or a well of truth.  In the top of the dome is a green triangle symbolic of the Holy Trinity. The pigments for the paints were from plants and minerals.  The blue pigment is made from Indigo, a plant introduced to Mexico during Spanish times.  The black is charcoal carbon, red is cinnebar (mercuric sulfide), green is one of the copper compounds, yellow and orange and their blends are ocherous hematites (iron oxides).  Mesquite gum was probably used as a carrier for the pigment.

The highest part of the dome ceiling is 32 feet above the floor and the room is 17 feet 4 inches across both ways.  The walls are about 5 feet 6 inches thick at the base but only 3 feet 6 inches thick at the top.

The priest, dressed in his bright-colored “holy vestments”, celebrated the Mass from the altar in the sanctuary.  The service of two hundred years ago was called the Misa Mayor in Spanish, or in English, the High Mass.  It was totally, or nearly all, sung by the priest and the choir. The main language of the Misa Mayor  was Latin, although some shorter prayers and answers given by the people in attendance could be offered in Spanish or Piman.

It is easy to visualize the priest singing here and the choir responding from the loft at the far end of the nave. Can you hear the melodious strains of the Gregorian chant reverberating above the heads of the kneeling parishioners like music from Heaven?  That was the effect that the celebrants were trying to create. Even the paintings, now faded after many years, were meant to bring a feeling of nearness to Heaven.

The outside view of the dome over the sanctuary is unique in that it has steps on the south side leading up to the lantern and cross.  It has been suggested that these steps were needed to light the lantern.

To the right of the sanctuary is the sacristy, a room not blessed or consecrated.  This, however, did not make it any less important.  Priests kept the clothing and articles used in the performance of their duties here.  In the sacristy they documented and stored the records of important events, signing their names as witness to marriages, births and deaths.

Missionaries dressed in the fine cloth of their position in preparation for performing their duties.  They changed roles as well as robes.  This was a place where a man prepared to be the man of God, disseminator of God's truths, a place of transition from the concerns of the physical world to the spiritual needs of the soul.  The sacristy was used about twenty-five years for its original purpose.  After it was abandoned, the church changed from a house of worship to just a house.  People who traveled through the area could not resist its lure.  With the protection of the sacristy's thick walls and a warming fire, they followed, without conscious thought, the footsteps of the priests before them.  They recorded their visits not on parchment bound in books, but on the plaster walls.  Tired "49ers" on their way to the California gold fields, and Mexican soldiers and cowboys spent nights here, lit fires and recorded their stay.  Later, U.S. soldiers and cowboys would do the same.  During the time of the great Mexican Revolution, a U.S. Army General patrolling the border spent a few nights in the sacristy.  While there he scratched his name in the plaster of the walls like many before him.  His name was John J. Pershing.

The sacristy provided shelter equally to all who discovered it.  The darkened ceiling gives testament to the numerous fires that were built for heating and cooking.  People continued to live and die there.  Those who died found their final resting place just outside.