Padre Junípero Serra Monument
Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive
Golden Gate Park
Created 1907

James D. Phelan, who was mayor of San Francisco from 1897 to 1902, commissioned Douglas Tilden to create this bronze and granite monument. This was the last monumental work by Douglas Tilden whose most famous work in San Francisco is the Mechanics Monument on Market Street.

The base of the sculpture was designed by architect Edgar Mathews.

The sculpture contributes to the Golden Gate Historic Park District.

Source: NRHP Nomination for Golden Gate Park Historic District submitted July 2004

Junípero Serra y Ferrer (1713-1784) was a Roman Catholic Spanish priest and Franciscan friar who founded the first nine of 21 Spanish missions in California. He is buried in the Carmel Mission in Carmel-by-the-Sea.

During a visit to the United States in 2015, Pope Francis canonized Padre Serra .

James D. Phelan supported the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Immigration Act of 1924. He ran a campaign to "Keep California White."

In December 2018, San Francisco changed the name of Phelan Avenue to Frida Kahlo Way. Phelan Avenue, a two-block street near City College of San Francisco, was named for Phelan's father, an Irish immigrant who became wealthy during the Gold Rush.

In woke San Francisco, a man can be canceled for something that his son did.

On Juneteenth 2020, protesters toppled three statues in Golden Gate Park - this statue of Padre Junipero Serra, a nearby statue of Francis Scott Key and a bust of Ulysses S. Grant.The mob also vandalized apolitical statues such as the Cervantes Memorial, the Apple Cider Press, the Sphinx and Leonidas.

A day earlier, a statue of Christopher Columbus near Coit Tower was removed by city workers and placed in storage.