Padre Gustav Gollbach, O.M.I.

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along to you now. Somewhere along the Rio Grande, there's a grotto built of petrified wood and native stone, and if you're wonderin' how something like that ends up in South Texas, well, let me walk you through it. Gustav Gollbach was born in Germany on the twenty-fourth of September, 1878.

He crossed an ocean and then some before this story really gets goin'. On the twenty-first of April, 1906, he was ordained a priest of the Order of Oblates of Mary Immaculate. And then he came to Texas.

Now Texas is a big place, and Gollbach wasn't the kind of man to stay put. He served churches in Del Rio, Castroville, Mercedes, San Benito, and Ballinger before finally landin' in Rio Grande City in 1924. That's a lot of ground to cover, a lot of pews, a lot of people, and a priest who clearly went wherever he was needed.

In Rio Grande City, he took on the role of parish priest at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, and he held that post until 1937. Thirteen years. And somewhere in the middle of all that, he did something that people are still talkin' about.

He built a replica of the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, France, right there in the Rio Grande Valley, using petrified wood and native stone. Think about that for a moment. Materials pulled from the very land around him, shaped into something meant to echo a sacred site thousands of miles away across the Atlantic.

It was dedicated in 1928. Gustav Gollbach died on the twenty-sixth of December, 1955. But that grotto he built, dedicated in 1928 out of petrified wood and native stone, has stood as an important historic site in the Rio Grande Valley ever since.

Some legacies are written down. Some are carved out of rock.

What the marker says

(24 Septiembre de 1878 - 26 Diciembre de 1955) Nacido en Alemania, Gustav Gollbach fue ordenado sacerdote de la Orden de Oblatos de Maria Inmaculada en el veinti uno de Abril de 1906. Inmigro al Estado de Texas sirviendo iglesias en Del Rio, Castroville, Mercedes, San Benito, y Ballinger antes de llegar a Rio Grande City en 1924. Sirviendo como Parroco de la Iglesia Inmaculada Concepcion hasta el ano de 1937, construyo una replica de la Gruta de Nuestra Senora de Lourdes, Francia, usando madera petrificada y piedra nativa. Dedicada en el ano 1928, la gruta ha sido un sitio historico importante en el Valle Del Rio Grande. (1992)