Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church

Jonesboro's Catholic parish began with a wrong train. In 1883 Irish railroad workers asked Father Eugene Weibel of Pocahontas to say Mass in town, and he came twice a month on a free railroad pass. Eighteen people gathered at roadmaster Frank Roach's house for the first one. The diocesan newspaper says Weibel, planning to resign for his health, boarded the wrong train, landed in Jonesboro and was talked into staying. His church, St. Roman, was dedicated on May 31, 1885. Lightning struck its bell tower on May 15, 1896, and the fire took the church, school and rectory.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Arkansas State University Museum — 1.4 mi
  A free university museum in the Dean B. Ellis Library, with a mastodon cast, an Old Town Arkansas street, Native American and Rockabilly galleries and a tinkering studio, and the hub of the university heritage sites.
• Crowley's Ridge State Park — 14 mi
  A 1933 state park on the loess hills of Crowley's Ridge, built around Benjamin Crowley's homestead spring and the stone-and-log pavilion, dam and cabins of the Civilian Conservation Corps.
• Powhatan Historic State Park — 29 mi
  A river port and county seat on the Black River whose 1888 courthouse, 1873 jail, log house and academy still stand where they were built, with a state archives branch in the same park.
• Davidsonville Historic State Park — 30 mi
  The ghost-town site of Arkansas's first post office, courthouse and federal land office, on the Black River, with open-frame outlines of the courthouse and a dogtrot house.

More markers nearby

• Craighead County Court House — steps away
• Troops Raised in Craighead County — 1.1 mi
• Last Confederate Veteran — 3.6 mi
• Confederate Headquarters in Harrisburg — 19 mi