Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, founded by Franciscans in Soledad, California, on October 9, 1791, was the thirteenth of the twenty-one California missions and gave the town its name. Created to convert Native people to Catholicism, it included Chalon Ohlone, then Esselen and Yokuts residents, and by 1803 had 627 Mission Indians and large livestock herds. The mission was an active religious and agricultural center but suffered major flood damage in 1824, 1828, and 1832. After secularization in 1835 it declined into ruin, then was restored beginning in 1954. Today it functions as both a Catholic chapel and a public museum.

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