Arizona Mission Faces Hurdles
By Lauren Walser | Online Only | Aug. 17, 2010
Although one of San Xavier del Bac's towers has been restored, the other is still in need of restoration.
Credit: Michael McNulty
More than 20 years after a major restoration project was launched at San Xavier del Bac, a Spanish Catholic mission nine miles south of Tucson, Ariz., the church suffered a major setback: state legislators cut the state's Heritage Fund, which designated a $150,000 grant to the mission.
The restoration team was planning to use the grant to repair the mission's 200-year-old east tower, one of the final exterior projects on the decades-long undertaking. But the architects have suspended work on the tower and have turned their attention to a smaller project, the east arcade off the mission's courtyard.
"We weren't willing to start something we couldn't finish," says lead architect Bob Vint, who has been working on the mission since exterior restoration began in 1989.
Vint estimates the east tower would take at least three years to finish and would require full scaffolding. The mission's 80-foot west tower was restored after four years of extensive repairs in 2008 with the help from a Save America's Treasures grant, a public-private partnership between the National Park Service and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Today, the west tower's gleaming facade stands in stark contrast to the weather-worn east tower.
Completed in 1797, the mission is a National Historic Landmark that still serves as a church and a school and attracts more than 200,000 visitors annually.
"It's a national treasure, but it's also certainly a community treasure," says Linda Mayro, cultural resource manager for Pima County, Ariz. "It speaks to the depth of all the traditions that have shaped our community. It's a real anchor for our identity and our sense of place."
In the 1970s, locals noticed the structure was badly in need of repair. Because the Franciscan friars who operated the church could not afford to restore it, in 1978 community members formed a nonprofit group called Patronato San Xavier to help raise funds for the effort.
Much of the damage was caused by a series of unsympathetic repairs made to the building earlier last century, which used materials incompatible with the mission's brick. The mission had been coated with cement plaster, so decades of moisture became trapped underneath, causing major deterioration to the brick.
While those repairs may have extended the longevity of the church, they ultimately caused more damage in the long run, Vint says. Over the last 20 years, the restoration crew has removed much of the cement plaster and repaired the damage underneath, re-pointing the mortar joints and refinishing the exterior with lime plaster.
A team of art conservators also spent more than six years cleaning and stabilizing the interior artwork, including the frescoes and sculptures.
Patronato San Xavier has helped raise more than $6 million in the last 20 years. But the economic downturn has delivered a blow to the group's efforts. In addition to the loss of the Heritage Fund, the project has faced other hardships, including the laying off of two of the six crew members and downsizing to a four-day work week.
"We're hanging in there," says Vern Lamplot, executive director of Patronato San Xavier.
But the restoration team is optimistic the project will have a happy ending.
"People have a real affection for this place," Lamplot says. "Once you enter, you really feel like you're in another place at another time."
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Comments
Submitted by Brian at: August 21, 2010
I was just teaching my high school students about this yesterday. We are in Phoenix, AZ, and only about 3 out of 40 students had even heard of this 18th century mission, even though its not too far south. A real shame that such a treasure is ignored.