With each winter, more historic adobe churches built by Hispanic settlers 100 or even 200 years ago begin to crumble.

After extensive archaeological excavations and planning, construction began in 1982 on a replica of the 1809 adobe church.

Until today it retains its old adobe church, built in colonial times.

The adobe church is now a ruin, its cupola teetering precariously.

Later, a small adobe church was raised to replace the older wooden structure.

As the sun began to climb today, neighbors carried their coffins through the unpaved streets toward the white adobe church.

The Bolivian missions have the best surviving wood and adobe churches.

The Mission's first permanent adobe church was dedicated with great ceremony on April 22, 1809.

It was built in 1904 to replace an earlier adobe church on the same site, which the congregation had outgrown.

Mass was being celebrated in a small adobe church by 1855, two years before the structure itself was completed.