We visited the
Old Adobe Mission in Scottsdale, Arizona, the oldest extant church in Scottsdale and the oldest Catholic Church in the area. It's taken care of by
Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the larger parish that was built a decade later when the parish outgrew the original building. Now, the mission church is used for baptisms, weddings, and funerals, otherwise it is a historic landmark in downtown Scottsdale.
The church was built in 1933 by Mexican settlers. The design by Robert T. Evans follows the Spanish Colonial Revival popular in the region. The mission didn't become a parish until 1948 and only served until 1956, when the rapidly expanding parish needed a new and larger building--the current Our Lady of Perpetual Help at Miller and 2nd Streets. The mission was restored in the early 2000s when it was put on the Register of Historic Buildings by Scottsdale's civil government.
We visited over Christmas time and were delighted to see a Nativity scene outside the church.
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| Old Adobe Mission, Scottsdale |
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| Nativity |
The Sacristy (the room where clergy would vest for Mass) has a display of vestments and artifacts from the second pastor, Eugene Maguire.
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| Vestment cabinet |
With the strong Mexican ties, a devotion to
Our Lady of Guadalupe continued throughout the years. Several statues, a banner, and a mosaic (created and donated by
Clare Boothe Luce) are on display.
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| Our Lady of Guadalupe |
The Truth Window is a small cutout in the wall showing the adobe bricks used to build the mission. The builders mixed clay, silt, sand, straw, horse dung, and water, then sun-dried the bricks before they were installed. A mud mixture was used to coat the bricks and serve as mortar. The final layer, the white walls of the church, is a lime plaster. When the restoration happened, they used the same recipe to make the bricks except they did not use horse dung since it was no longer readily available in the 2000s!
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| Original adobe |
The nave of the church is not very large but is quite inviting, full of light and space.
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| Nave |
Over the main altar is a statue of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, dontated by the Dominguez family in the 1950s and imported from Guadalajara, Mexico. The statue was moved to the main parish in the late 1950s and then returned with the historic restoration in the early 2000s.
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| Our Lady of Perpetual Help |
The front altarpiece is a base relief in color of the Last Supper. It was donated to the church in the 1940s by All Saints Church in Tucson.
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| Most appropriate altar decoration ever? |
A side altar is dedicated to Saint Joseph, so naturally I took a picture of that.
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| St. Joseph Altar |
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| Indoor Christmas decor |
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| Baptismal font |
The room behind the altar is set up as a gallery with photos and artifacts from the history of the mission.
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| 1844 Bible |
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| The original cross from the mission's roof |
A choir loft is unused.
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| Choir loft over the mission entrance |
The confessionals were restored by Eagle Scout Kevin Donaldson to their original design, though that corner of the back of the church serves as the gift shop.
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| No, they don't sell indulgences! |
The Stations of the Cross are not the original ones; they are prints of the 1965 Stations created for Tucson's Newman Catholic Student Center.
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| Jesus falls the first time |
The mission is open daily from October to May from noon to 4 p.m.
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