St. Boniface Parish traces its roots to the earliest days of San Francisco when the nation was at a crossroads in its history. The Civil War was looming dark in the east but around the San Francisco Bay, colonized by Spanish explorers and Franciscan Friars, the economy was on fire with gold from the Sierra Nevada and silver from the Comstock Lode. The population was growing exponentially as both American citizens and European and Chinese immigrants poured into the City of St. Francis by land and by sea by the thousands.
St. Boniface Parish was founded in 1860 by Archbishop of San Francisco Joseph Sadoc Alemany to serve the rapidly growing German immigrant community aggregating on the outskirts of the infamous Barbary Coast. The earthquake of 1868 pushed the struggling group of founding parishoners farther out onto the grid of streets that in later decades became the Tenderloin. In its 150 years, St. Boniface Parish has continued to serve both local and immigrant communites living in San Francisco bringing worship and service to our neighbors for the glory of God through the charism of St. Francis of Assisi.
The church records in the archives at St. Boniface Church represent some of the only official city records that pre-date the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The documents, which date from 1868, were spirited out of the rubble by the resident friars before the fabled firestorm thaat followed the quake reduced the site to ashes. The friars and the parish records remained safely ensconced at the former St. Joseph Hospital near Buena Vista Park until the Golden Gate Avenue campus was fit for use again in 1908. Archiving the St. Boniface Church records is an on-going process.
