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The original buildings at Soledad Mission were brush shelters. Building materials were scarce, and it was six years before the first permanent structure, an adobe chapel with a straw roof, was built.

The mission's location was prone to flooding, and the nearby Salinas and Arroyo Seco Rivers, small in summer, often overflowed in the rainy winter season. An 1824 flood destroyed the church, and it was never rebuilt. In 1828 another flood washed away the chapel that was built to replace the church. In 1832, the chapel was once completely destroyed by a flood.

When the mission roof was sold in 1835 to pay its debts, the remaining buildings began to crumble, and they sat unused for the next 90 years.

The current adobe buildings were reconstructed from the dust of the original bricks, starting in 1954.

The bell hanging outside the chapel door today is the original one sent from Mexico in 1794