The mission location was originally a native Sobaipuri or O'odham (Upper Pima) settlement, which Eusebio Kino visited in 1690.

[citation needed] Under Jesuit supervision, Pima laborers built a small chapel in 1701, using adobe bricks and basic tools.

[5] In 1751, Joseph Garrucho contracted Joaquín de Casares of Arizpe to direct Pima laborers in building a new and larger 15-foot by 50-foot church,[5] the ruins of which still exist today.

[6] The first Franciscan priest, Juan Crisóstomo Gil de Bernabé, arrived in 1768 and took up residency at the mission with about fifty families.

[8][11] Archaeologist Deni Seymour has excavated a portion of the indigenous Sobaipuri-O'odham settlement of Guevavi[12][13] and Father Kino's "neat little house and church.