| About St. Mary's Church |
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St. Mary's Established 1879
The Catholic Church came to Cooke County in 1879, the same year the railroad came to Gainesville. Father S. Granger, a missionary priest, said the first Mass in Gainesville in the home of Dr. J.E. Gilcreest, using the top of a square piano as the altar. (Dr Gilcreest was a longtime leader in the church and in the city. He died March 18, 1926.
With the increasing number of Catholics coming to Cooke County, Bishop Nicholas A. Gallagher of the Diocese of Galveston to which Gainesville and most of Texas belonged. The next year the Diocese of Dallas was founded and St. Mary's fell under its jurisdiction until the founding of the Diocese of Fort Worth in 1970.
In 1920 St. Mary's church building was destroyed by fire caused by a faulty gas radiator. Father James A. Kealy, pastor, took immediate steps to build a new church. Cornerstone of the new building was laid September 25, 1920. With brick structure, priceless stained glass windows from Germany and Stations of the Cross from England, the church has served the faithful well these many years. In the summer of '84, the church received its first major remodeling. Besides a new roof, the church received new oak pews, lights, carpet, sancturay furniture, new doors, a new vestibule and sacristy restructed to provide for a bathroom.
Three other parishes have been established in Cooke County since St. Mary's was founded: Sacred Heart of Muenster, Est. 1889; St Peter's, Lindsay, Est. 1892; and St. John, Valley View, Est. 1946
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