The City of Santa Cruz was founded in 1791, as both the site of a Franciscan mission, Mission La Exaltacion de la Santa Cruz, and a Spanish garrison, Pueblo Branciforte. In 1793, the Mission was moved from its original flood-prone site near the San Lorenzo River to its present location on Mission Hill, overlooking the San Lorenzo River and today's downtown area. Dedicated in the spring of 1794, the Mission was a complex of buildings that contained living quarters, workshops, and other uses, built around three sides of a plaza bounded by the modern streets Sylvar, Emmett, High, and Mission.

In their style, the Missions's fathers tried to reproduce the late baroque architecture familiar to them in Spain and Mexico. However, the limitations of the adobe building medium and the unskilled Indian labor reduced the buildings to very plain adobe structures, with thick walls. The missions themselves were buttressed by thick piers fronted with arcades and ornamental bell towers. Roofs were more often made of "Brea", the tar found naturally in several spots in California, rather than of tile or shingles, which were not used until the 1840's.

The Neary-Rodriguez Abode at 130 School Street is Santa Cruz's only remaining example of the Spanish era adobe. Originally, it was one story and subsequently had the roof raised and another half-story inserted underneath. Constructed as two buildings with a common-party wall, it is likely to have been used as some kind of living quarters, possibly for the Mission guards.

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