St. Mary's Catholic Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I tell it too. Way back in the 1850s, out on a stretch of Texas called Ross Prairie in Fayette County, the Catholic families of German and Czech origin didn't have a church of their own. What they had were visiting priests, men who came when they could and moved on when they had to.

That was enough, for a while. But roots want to go deep, and so after 1855, those families gathered in a log church, two miles north of where we're standing now. They named it Saint Joseph, and it earned a distinction that still holds: the first permanent Catholic church in Fayette County.

Not bad for a building made of logs on the Texas prairie. Around 1861, the church moved to a place called Live Oak Hill, and then in 1864, this very site was purchased, near the settlement, as if the congregation had finally spotted the ground it had been looking for all along. The first resident priest, a man who could stay rather than just pass through, arrived in 1872.

And in 1879, a larger church rose on this hill, carrying a full and serious name: Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, though folks came to call it St. Mary's. Now, here's where the story takes a hard turn.

In 1905, that church burned. Everything the community had built toward, gone in fire. But what a community does next tells you everything about it.

They didn't leave. They didn't wait long. In 1906, right here on what is now called Hostyn Hill, they built the Gothic-styled church you can see standing today.

Same hill, new walls, old faith. Some stories end in ash. This one ended in stone.

What the marker says

In the 1850s, families of German and Czech origin in the Ross Prairie area were served by visiting priests. After 1855, they worshipped in a log church (2 miles N) named Saint Joseph, the first permanent Catholic church in Fayette County. The church moved to Live Oak Hill about 1861, and purchased this site near the settlement in 1864. The first resident priest arrived in 1872, and a larger church structure, named Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (St. Mary's), was built in 1879. After it burned in 1905, this Gothic-styled church was built here now called Hostyn Hill--in 1906. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986.