| Mission Creek | |
|---|---|
 Mission Creek, looking east. | |
| Location | |
| Country | United States |
| State | California |
| Region | San Francisco Bay Area |
| City | San Francisco |
| District | Mission Bay |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Source | Camp and Albion Streets[1] |
| • location | San Francisco |
| • coordinates | 37°45′51″N122°25′22″W / 37.764039°N 122.422702°W /37.764039; -122.422702 |
| • elevation | 486 ft (148 m)[citation needed] |
| Mouth | China Basin[1] |
Mission Creek (from Spanish:misión) is a river inSan Francisco, California. Once navigable from theMission Bay inland to the vicinity ofMission Dolores, where several smaller creeks converged to form it, Mission Creek has long since been largelyculverted. Its only remaining portion above-ground is the Mission Creek Channel which drains intoChina Basin.[2]
The twoRamaytush Indian villages of Chutchui and Sitlintac were located on Mission Creek.
The Spanish named the waterway,Arroyo de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, in English, "Our Lady of Sorrows Creek." Its Spanish dedication toSeñora de los Dolores eventually gave theMission San Francisco de Asís founded near its source, its alternate informal name,Mission Dolores.[3] Declared by the state legislature in 1854 to be a navigable stream, it retains the designation today, even though most of it was vacated for use by boats in 1874 and later filled in.[4]
Soil liquefaction, such as that which killed numerous people in the1906 San Francisco earthquake, has been known to occur along buried portions of the creek.[5][6]
The China Basin Building was erected on the creek's north bank in the 1920s and used for off-loading and processing bananas through the 1950s. In the 1970s it was known as the Del Monte Building and used as a food distribution site by the Hearst family in response to the demands of theSLA.[7]
A community of house boats has existed along the creek's south bank since 1960 when the state of California moved the houseboat community there fromIslais Creek to make way for merchant ship trading.[8]
The mouth of Mission Creek has been known toMajor League Baseball fans asMcCovey Cove ever since the year 2000 when theSan Francisco Giants relocated from their former home atCandlestick Park toOracle Park on the creek's north bank. Balls hit over the right field wall splash-land in the water there.
TheLaguna Dolores was fed by the creek.[9] It was the site of the originalMission Dolores, and probably stretched betweenMission Street and Valencia, and 20th and 16th streets before being filled in with sand.[9][3]