A state historical marker at Camp and Albion Streets commemorates the first mass celebrated by the Anza expedition on June 29, 1776 — but geologists dispute its claim of a “vanished lake,” Ohlone descendants call it a marker of cultural destruction, and neighbors say it’s a nuisance. No one has moved to change it.

At the corner of Camp and Albion Streets, a bronze state historical marker has been bolted to the sidewalk since June 29, 1995. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 327‑1 declares that on June 29, 1776, Father Francisco Palou “had a brushwood shelter built here, on the edge of a now‑vanished lake, Lago de los Dolores (Lake of the Sorrows), and offered the first mass.” Many historians call that mass the unofficial founding of San Francisco.

The plaque was placed by the California Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the Albion/Camp Neighborhood Association on the 219th anniversary of the event. It sits a few blocks west of Mission Dolores, the adobe church the Anza expedition built later that year. In the 250th‑anniversary week, the marker draws a steady trickle of visitors — and a long‑running dispute about what actually happened on this corner.

Geologists Christopher Richard and Janet Sowers have argued that the “vanished lake” likely never existed. “You can’t have a lake on a highland,” Richard told KQED in 2011. “You can’t have a lake in a bathtub when you’ve pulled the plug. The water would have immediately drained away.” Their updated San Francisco Watershed Map omitted the lagoon. The two researchers have said they would like the plaque revised or taken down.

For Ramaytush Ohlone descendants, the plaque commemorates the start of what member Gregg Castro called “the dark years” — the destruction of Indigenous culture that followed the colonists’ arrival. “This is not a celebration for us,” Castro told NBC Bay Area last week. “This is a remembrance of when the dark years began for us.”

On the block, the marker is also a practical nuisance. “Honestly it’s the bane of my existence, that sign,” resident Tom Schmidt told KQED. “It attracts tour buses, groups of school kids, drunk teenagers. It’s a nuisance.”

No formal petition to revise or remove the plaque has reached the California Office of Historic Preservation, which holds final authority over the marker. Any change would also need review by San Francisco’s Arts Commission and a Public Works encroachment permit — a process that has not been triggered.

Meanwhile, the Mission around it continues to churn. Forty‑two eviction notices have been filed in the neighborhood in the last 90 days; 2,401 311 requests logged in the last week. The plaque stays, a fixed point in a changing city, its bronze words telling a story that not everyone agrees on.