California officials quietly removed a 26-foot statue of Father Junípero Serra from a Highway 280 rest stop in San Mateo County after nearly five decades, the state’s transportation agency confirmed.
Caltrans crews dismantled the concrete and steel monument in August from the Crystal Springs Rest Area in Hillsborough, closing the site for a week with little public notice, according to CBS News. Patricia Gonzalez, who manages the rest stop, said visitors still show up expecting to see the statue. (RELATED: Puppet Triggers Entire Protest, Gets Kicked Out)
“The last people to come were from Ireland, and they came to see the statue, and it was gone,” Gonzalez told the outlet.
Artist Louis DuBois built the statue in 1975. For decades it loomed over Interstate 280, a familiar landmark for Peninsula commuters.
Caltrans demolishes 50-year-old statue of Junipero Serra along Interstate 280 https://t.co/uWrVyF6H8i
— East Bay Times (@EastBayTimes) October 7, 2025
Caltrans said the monument no longer complied with its Transportation Art program and was too fragile to relocate safely. The program, according to the agency’s website, is meant to display artwork that reflects a community’s “unique aesthetic, environmental, scenic, historical, and cultural values.”
Father Serra founded nine of California’s 21 missions in the 18th century and was canonized by Pope Francis in 2015. Critics, however, see him as a symbol of colonization and Amerindian oppression. Gregg Castro, cultural director at the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone — a subgroup of the Ohlone people native to the San Francisco Peninsula — told CBS News he supported the statue’s removal.
The statue of the Roman Catholic Spanish priest Junipero Serra is pictured in Palma de Mallorca on June 22, 2020, after it was daubed with graffiti reading “Racist”. Image not from story. (Photo by JAIME REINA/AFP via Getty Images)
“One of the responses we get is that we’re trying to erase history,” Castro said. “And my response is that the statue itself erases history, it ignores the harm that was done.”
San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone condemned the removal, saying officials failed to consult Catholics or local residents who would have opposed it.
“No one fought for St. Junípero Serra because, apparently, officials from Caltrans and the Transportation Art Program didn’t consult with anyone who would give them an opinion that differed from their own,” the archbishop told the outlet. “Would we expect this treatment if it happened to be associated with another religious organization? I think not.”
Statues of Father Serra were defaced or torn down across California during the 2020 riots, including one toppled in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Caltrans said it has no plans to replace the monument.