The Saint Isidro Labrador Church was founded in 1686 by the Franciscan Bishop Diego de Umanzoro, who realized that south of the La Cañada there were numerous farms which did not have religious services. Then, a small adobe chapel was built among the small farms in honor of the patron saint of farmers, Saint Isidro. Beside the temple the vicar’s house was built that had a front of corridors that would soon house the muleteers and traditional farmers that were heading to Santiago. A corral for animals was built in front of the house. Afterwards, part of the farm was separated into lots and the population increased. Very quickly, it became the social and spiritual center of the first sub-urban housing project in the central zone.

After the 1730 earthquake the church was completely destroyed. However, in 1754 Francisco García Huidobro, the Marquis of the Royal House (Marqués de Casa Real) had demolished what was left of the original temple and ordered the construction of a new parish with cut stone foundations, made in brick and lime. Afterwards, García Huidobro himself processed the extension of a lateral road up to La Cañada, which at the beginning was called the Calle de la Pelota (Ball Street) because it was used as a sports field to play Basque Ball; currently, the street is called Saint Isidro, due to the temple’s name.

In 1842 the building of the third church starts, located 100 meters south of the old church that was already falling in. The project was in charge of the Vicar Blas de los Reyes and was finished in 1848. The December 6, 1850 earthquake produced irreparable damages and left the church in deplorable conditions.

The works of the fourth and current temple started in 1896 entrusted by the vicar Eduardo Gimpert. The works is laid out in the same place as the previous one and was designed by the architect Ignacio Cremonesi, concluding the works in 1903. After the 1906 earthquake refurbishment works were done and the dome was added over the High Altar, done by Ricardo Echeverría. This dome caved in with the 1921 earthquake, then being substituted by the current one.

At present, the Church de Saint Isidro is in regular preservation conditions according to what was declared by the National Monuments Council, although here is deterioration dating back to the 1985 earthquake, the February 27, 2010 earthquake ended up leaving it in a regretful condition, with structural damages. On Saint Isidro Street and in the temple’s interior, the separation of the wall can be seen in reference to the rest of the structure, there are cracks everywhere and a feeling of total abandon. The church is closed to the public and a space was enabled on one side to continue offering religious services to the people of the sector.

According to what is told, the church would have been ransacked and looted by an antique dealer, who did so backing itself on a restoration and piece replacement contract. He was accused that from March 2010 he took away from the church for a year around 389 religious objects, among them a 200 kilo bronze bell, candle sticks, an Episcopal armchair, a bronze stand, a missal, a 2 meter silver Christ, a silver bell for mass and even an oak chimney from the parish house; it is even said that he took the marble from some of the altars and replaced them by coarse MDF trupan (wood, resin and wax board) plates with marble paint of the work kind. There is no information available as to how the plainclothes police department investigation (Policía de Investigaciones PDI) concluded, or if the culprit was declared guilty by the justice courts of law. But that the church has been ransacked and looted is a fact.

Maybe one day resources will be processed to restore it and thus continue forming part of our patrimony, on the contrary its fate is to disappear and be replaced by some building or a strip center, in what seems to be the near and not far future.

On November 24, 1977 it was declared a Historical Monuments, given its architectonic characteristics and given the age of its construction.