San Ignacio de Cabórica

San Ignacio is a small village about 9 kilometers north of Magdalena de Kino, and its mission church is one of the best preserved on the Ruta de las Misiones. Father Eusebio Francisco Kino first came here on March 14, 1687, found a village of welcoming O'odham people called Cabórica, and named it San Ignacio. A few years later Father Agustín de Campos made it his base and stayed for more than four decades.

The church you see today was built, or heavily rebuilt, in the 1770s under the Franciscan Francisco Sánchez Zúñiga, after the Franciscans took over the Sonoran missions in 1768. San Ignacio then became the head mission of the area, with Magdalena and Ímuris as its dependent chapels. The walls are adobe faced with fired brick, with a barrel-vaulted nave, a dome, and decorative masonry on the facade.

Its most famous detail is in the west tower: a spiral staircase carved from mesquite wood that winds up to the roof. The church is still the village's parish, so it is a living church rather than a museum.