Beginnings of a Parish

Hall County was established by an act of the legislature in 1855 and was organized in 1859. That same year, Patrick Moore and his brother, Richard, came from Iowa City, Iowa to be the first Catholic families in Hall County. They immediately sought help from the bishop in Omaha. However, it wasn't until 1861 that the first priest, Father Almire Fairmont, a Frenchman, came to visit the Hall County parishioners.

Father Fairmont celebrated the first Mass in the Moore's log cabin in the fall of that year, 3 miles west of what is now the town of Wood River. Moore's house was the home of the Rev. Anthony Moore, the first priest ordained from Hall County. About the same time that the Moores settled, the Windolph families, also Catholics, arrived in Grand Island.

Priests from Columbus or Omaha then came to the Grand Island and Wood River area once a year to confer the sacraments and celebrate Mass. In 1864, Father M. J. Ryan offered Mass once a month in homes and railroad section houses.

With the railroad coming to the county, the parishioners felt a church to be necessary. Under Father Ryan the first church was built in 1869 on land given by Union Pacific. The land was located at First and Elm streets, where the parish center now stands. Sadly, due to a windstorm, the church was destroyed before its dedication. This was a great shock to the young mission and its members. A second attempt to build a church was halted in 1873 by an economic depression.

On February 17, 1877, the members of the church began for the third time to rebuild, and were able to finish the construction begun earlier. The cornerstone was laid May 7, the building completed in July and dedicated in September of that year, attended by Father Ryan from Columbus as a mission. The building was a frame structure with a good brick foundation situated upon the site of the public library. The same year, Father P.J. Erlach was named the first resident pastor and the congregation numbered about 30 families.

Father Richard Phelan came on July 4, 1880 and found 52 families belonging to the congregation. Father Phelan served until his death from a stroke of paralysis on March 10, 1884. Father P. Lynch took care of the parish, which had been handled in the interim by Father Smith of O'Connor. Father Lynch remained in Grand Island until October 6, 1886, when he was transferred to the Wood River congregation, which had until then been a mission attached to Grand Island.