Mission San Cosme y Damián de Tucsón


Mission San Cosme y Damián de Tucsón, originally known as Mission de San Agustin del Tucson. It was located on the west side of the Santa Cruz River, at the base of Sentinel Peak or "A" Mountain in present-day Tucson, Pima County, Arizona.
The mission would be built, near the Sobaipuri village of Chuk Shon meaning "at the foot of the black mountain", which Padre Eusebio Francisco Kino named San Cosmé del Tucson. Here Father Kino established a visita or daughter church of Mission San Xavier del Bac in 1692. In 1768 the visita was expanded, fortified and renamed Mission San Agustín del Tucson by the Franciscans who had just replaced the Jesuits in the Missions. This was soon followed by the establishment of a Presidio San Augustin del Tucson in 1776 on the east side of the Santa Cruz River. A pueblo of Tucson grew up near the Presido along the river. The Mission was finally abandoned in 1828. Its lands were sold off, the buildings, neglected were eventually destroyed and the site was made a city dump in the 1950s.