{"nrhp_refnum":"89000805","name":"Mission Brewery","other_names":["American Agar Company","American Agar and Chemical Company"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"1715 Hancock St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"San Diego","county":"San Diego County","state":"CA","lat":32.74177804900006,"lon":-117.18391974499997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1989-07-06","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry","Health/Medicine","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Two connected industrial buildings at 1715 Hancock Street in San Diego, California: a small single-story office building and a large multi-level tower building, built in 1913 as the Mission Brewery in the Mission Revival style.","why_significant":"The nomination argues it is the only Mission Revival industrial building in San Diego and the first Mission style brewery built in the United States. It also served as an isolation hospital during the 1918-1919 influenza epidemic. It later housed one of the early agar production plants, which processed seaweed.","narrative":"Built in 1912-1913 as the Mission Brewery, this pair of connected buildings at 1715 Hancock Street in San Diego combines a small office building with a large tower structure of brick and stucco. Architect Richard Griesser, whose family firm specialized in breweries, designed it in the Mission Revival style at the owners' request, with arched windows, espadana parapets and a stuccoed ground floor. The nomination describes it as the first Mission style brewery in the United States and the only industrial application of the style in San Diego. The brewery closed in 1918, and during the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919 the building served as an isolation hospital, using the old brewery laboratory. From 1923 it housed the American Agar Company, an early seaweed-processing plant, which operated there until 1933 and again from about 1941. Much of the interior is now vacant and deteriorated, though the exterior appearance is largely unaltered.","period_of_significance":"1913-1918: 1923-1933 (industry); 1918-1919 (health/medicine)","architect_builder":"Griesser, Richard","architectural_style":"Mission Revival","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Most of the tower building's interior is vacant and some walls are in poor condition; the western addition and five tin sheds are no longer extant.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:27.841324-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_CA/89000805.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/89000805/bfeed8ff63-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/89000805/bfeed8ff63-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Bruce Roberson","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mission_Brewery_Southeast_Northeast_Facades.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Bruce Roberson</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mission_Brewery_Southeast_Northeast_Facades.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123860927","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Brewery_Plaza","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6019470"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/california/san-diego-county/mission-brewery-89000805/"}