Sonoma Mission. The mission buildings were barely finished when Sonoma Mission was secularized on November 3 1834. General Mariano Vallejo, Commandant of the San Francisco Presidio, took control. He was supposed to distribute the property to the Indians, but he took it for himself instead. Vallejo founded a town, now the town of Sonoma, around the mission. The old chapel was used as a parish church until 1880, and was eventually sold to a man who built a saloon in front of it and used the chapel as a storehouse. The Historic Landmarks League bought the mission property in 1903, and they finished restoring the mission in 1926, when they turned it over to the State of California. After further restoration, the mission is part of the Sonoma Mission State Historic Park. Photo by Carol Highsmith