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St. Mary’s Church had its beginnings at the end of the
19th Century (1891) when Most Reverend Bishop Nicholas Matz, D.D. of
Denver asked Rev. Boniface Wirtner, of St. Vincent Archabbey, in Pennsylvania,
to establish a parish for the Slovenes, Germans and Slovaks who were residing in
the Grove. The first church was an abandoned, converted broom factory. In 1895,
land was purchased on Clark Street and a new church/school combination was built
and named Mary, Help of Christians. The school occupied the first floor and the
church occupied the second floor. The cost for the entire building was $27,000.
A residence opposite the church was purchased for the Sisters. It was a frame
dwelling which at one time served as the first St. Mary’s Hospital.
Eventually the needs of the various ethnic groups
gave way to two other parishes: St. Leander and St. Anthony. Towards the end of
1900, it was deemed necessary to build a separate church to serve the German
population; this gave rise to St. Leander. And in 1912, a new school and church
was built on Clark and C Streets for the Slovak population. It was named St.
Anthony. (St. Anthony Parish shut its doors in 1988, and the building was razed
in the early 1990s).
On June 3, 1921, Pueblo suffered its greatest
flood disaster. The storm started at 9:00 p.m. and raged until 2:00 a.m. the
following morning. The river flooded the heart of the Grove district. Damage to
St. Mary Church and School was heavy and many members of the parish were left
homeless.
When rehabilitation began a few weeks later, the
property of the defunct Eiler Smelter was purchased off of South Santa Fe and
East Mesa Avenues to serve as the site for a new church. In 1923, the Smelter
was demolished and the bricks cleaned and used to build a school on Mesa Avenue.
The former home of the Smelter’s manager was converted into a convent, and a
bar on the grounds was turned into a temporary chapel.
The depression of 1929 weighed heavily on the
parish with its $50,000 debt. In 1939, the debt was reduced through the sale of
thirty-six lots of land, sub-divided on Santa Fe and Mesa.
After thirty years of waiting, construction of a
new church building began on the East Mesa Avenue in 1953. Bishop Willging
solemnly dedicated the church on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1954.
The following year, the original church in the Grove was given to Mt. Carmel
Parish.
In May 1995, St. Mary celebrated its 100th
anniversary. This marked a milestone in the parish’s history as the
Benedictine Sisters and Fathers, who had served the needs of parishioners for a
century, stepped down as St. Mary became a member of the Tri-Parish Community.
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