Holy Rosary Church

Address: 511 East Spring, Saint Mary’s, Ohio, 45885-2388 Phone: (419) 394-5050 Website

Mass Times: Sat. 17:00; Sun. 09:00, 11:00; Mon. 01:00 (Communion Service on Mon.); Tues.08:00; Wed. 08:00; Thurs.08:00; Fri. 08:00; Vigil of Holy Day: 17:30; Holy Day: 08:00, 19:00

Parish Founded: 1852 Church Built: 1979

Architect: Unknown Architectural Style: None Listed

History: St. Mary's first Catholics settled in the community in 1831. Their numbers greatly increased in the 1840's with the construction of the Miami and Erie Canal and of Grand Lake St. Mary's. At this time, large numbers of German Catholics were taking up residence in the plains of western Ohio near St. Mary's, and priests of the Society of the Precious Blood became established in Minster, about 10 miles (16 km) to the south of St. Mary's. For twenty years, the community's Catholics often traveled to Minster for Mass; this situation ended with the erection of Holy Rosary parish in 1852.

By 1854, the parishioners built their first church, a log structure, and the parish's property was expanded with the purchase of land for a cemetery and a small rectory in 1861. By this time, growth in membership rendered the church too small for the numbers of worshipers, but the parish was too poor to erect a replacement. Under the leadership of Joseph Gregory Dwenger, the parish received encouragement from Archbishop John Baptist Purcell, and other churches in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati contributed significant amounts of money for construction; the parish finished its new church in 1867 at a cost of $12,000.

Designed by Minster architect Anton Goehr, the new church was a simple rectangular brick structure with a bell tower supported by a stone foundation. The original church was moved to the banks of the canal in downtown St. Mary's. As the parish continued to grow into the 1880's, a bell was added to the church's steeple, and a rectory was built at a cost of nearly $3,000. Non-Catholics in the community paid nearly half of the cost of erecting the rectory. Increased wealth among the parishioners and growing anti-Catholic sentiment in the region resulted in the foundation of a parish school in 1902.

By the 1940's, the church had deteriorated significantly to the point that an extensive remodeling effort was necessary. Increased membership in the 1950's overcrowded the school building; a new school was built in its place in time for the 1957 school year. By the late 1960's, this growth made the century-old church too small for its parish, and efforts to erect a new church began in 1969. With surveys revealing that nearly three in four parishioners wanted a new building, the original church was demolished in 1978; its replacement was finished in the following year. Some features of the original church, such as its organ and some of its windows, were preserved and included in the new construction.

One year after its demolition, the church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its architectural significance, along with nearly thirty other Catholic churches in the region of far western Ohio known as the "Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches." Although more than thirty years have passed since the second building's destruction, it remains listed on the National Register and the Ohio Historical Society's website claims that it is still standing