Unlike many other California missions, Mission San Miguel Arcángel did not originally possess a formal bell tower; for most of its history, the bells hung from simple wooden structures or a unique campanario (bell wall) made of adobe and river rock. The prominent bell tower visible today is not an original historic structure. It was constructed during restoration efforts in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1950s (sources vary slightly on the exact completion decade, but agree it is a 20th-century addition) to securely hold the mission’s massive bells. The tower is built of mortar and river stone, distinct from the adobe of the main church, to support the weight of the bells, including a central 2,000-pound bell cast in San Francisco in 1888 from fragments of older mission bells.
