Mission San Xavier del Bac, Tucson, Arizona

Standing alone for more than 200 years in the harsh desert of southern Arizona above the Santa Cruz River on the Tohono O’odham Reservation ten miles south of Tucson, the Mission San Xavier del Bac is considered to be the finest example of Spanish Colonial architecture in the United States, and the oldest extant European structure in the state of Arizona. Once rotting under the burdens of time and the elements - scorching heat, torrential monsoon rains, and well-intentioned, though misguided, encasement in an exterior cement veneer during years past - significant restoration efforts are returning the White Dove of the Desert to its original ecclesiastical glory, resurrected, as it were, with love, sweat, and much-needed financial contributions from private, and ever-dwindling public, resources.

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