Mission Santa Cruz

Mission Santa Cruz was established in 1791 near today's intersection of Center and Laurel streets. The following year, in a new location on higher ground, construction began on a complex of buildings that formed the early nucleus of Santa Cruz. In 1931, Phelan family heir Gladys Sullivan Doyle funded construction of a reduced-scale mission chapel replica. The original chapel site is today's Holy Cross church.

• History Pages: 3 - The Missionaries
• The Sidewalk Companion to Santa Cruz Architecture (4th ed. 2023), Chapter Four, items (30) and (32), pages 98-100
• Torchiana, Henry Albert van Coenen. Story of the Mission Santa Cruz. San Francisco: Paul Elder and Co., 1933.
• Edna Kimbro, Construction Chronology of the Site of Holy Cross Church, Santa Cruz, California, SCPL Local History Articles.
• Santa Cruz: The Early Years by Leon Rowland, p22

Buildings outside of the main Mission complex included a tannery (later the Boston & Jones tannery, and a grist mill on Laurel Creek. According to Rowland, in 1796 Governor Borica sent artisans to build the grist mill, using iron work brought in 1792 by explorer George Vancouver.