St. Juliana Falconieri Catholic Church

Red Cloud's Catholics had no resident priest. He came by train, and when he was aboard the engineer sounded the whistle in a particular way so the congregation knew Mass was about to begin. J. L. Miner gave the land in 1882 and, by one account, named the church for his wife, Julia; the Ludlow Brick Company fired the brick from local clay. The belfry never held a bell. Restoring the building in 1968 and 1969, the Foundation rebuilt the entrance hood, the balustrade and the open belfry lost in its years as a house.

What the plaque says

St. Juliana Falconieri Catholic Church The St. Juliana Falconieri Catholic Church was built in 1883 of brick fired at Red Cloud. It served Red Cloud's Catholic congregation until 1906 when it was sold and converted into a private residence. Here, Annie Pavelka, the Antonia of Cather's well-loved novel My Antonia, was married, and here her first child was baptized. Restored and donated by the Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial and Educational Foundation. Administered by the Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• National Willa Cather Center — 0.7 mi
  The restored Moon Block on Red Cloud's Webster Street, home of the Willa Cather Foundation, with the town she grew up in and wrote about laid out around it.
• Willa Cather Memorial Prairie — 5.3 mi
  Six hundred and twelve acres of never-plowed mixed-grass prairie south of Red Cloud, once Kitkehahki Pawnee country, named for the writer who said the grass was the country.
• Home on the Range Cabin — 26 mi
  Dr. Brewster Higley's 1872 homestead cabin on West Beaver Creek in Smith County, where he wrote the poem that became Home on the Range, kept on its ground by a farm couple who would not sell it.

More markers nearby

• Burlington Depot — 0.2 mi
• Cather Childhood Home — 0.5 mi
• Red Cloud, 1871-1971 — 0.5 mi
• Grace Episcopal Church — 0.7 mi