St. Mary Mission Church

The building has been moved for the sake of traffic. When Main Street, FM 518, was widened and came too near the entrance, the League City Historical Society shifted the church back from the road, and volunteers spent hundreds of hours restoring it. They sanded the floors, sandblasted the ceiling to bare the original wood and rehung the old bell in the belfry. Society photographs show ordinary parish life: a First Communion class on the porch in 1942, the wedding of Evelyn Habluetzel and Angelo Arolfo in September 1948, and another wedding there in April 1953.

What the plaque says

St. Mary Mission Church Beginning in the late 19th century, League City's Catholic residents gathered in homes for Mass and other services. As the population grew, so did the need for a church. J.C. League deeded land to the Diocese of Galveston, and parishioners of St. Mary Mission Church built a frame sanctuary that served them for many years after its dedication in December 1910. The Diocese appointed the Rev. Jerome A. Rapp (1881-1952), who conducted Mass for the Catholic residents before 1910, as the mission church's first pastor. He served both this church and other mainland missions. St. Mary Mission Church served as a social center of the community from early in its history. During the Great Depression, the church began the Mainland Catholic Picnic as a means of reducing debt. It quickly became a popular community-wide activity, lasting for many years. As the decades passed, the League City congregation continued to grow, especially as the nearby Johnson Space Center rapidly expanded during the latter twentieth century. The church moved into a new and larger building, dedicating it in 1966. Meanwhile, the old mission was used only occasionally for church functions, although several organizations, including the Knights of Columbus, often met there. In the late twentieth century, parishioners organized to relocate and restore the former mission church building. Today, the Gothic Revival structure is the only extant example of the original mainland missions. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Space Center Houston — 2.8 mi
  The visitor center of NASA's Johnson Space Center at Clear Lake, with flown capsules, a shuttle replica riding a 747, and tram tours to Mission Control and a Saturn V.
• San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site — 16 mi
  The 1,200 acres of coastal prairie and marsh where the Texas Revolution ended in eighteen minutes, and the 567-foot shaft of fossil-studded limestone that has stood over them since 1939.
• Galveston Island State Park — 23 mi
  A cattle ranch willed to the state that now runs the full width of Galveston Island, from two miles of Gulf beach across dunes and prairie to the marshes of West Galveston Bay.
• Emancipation Park — 23 mi
  The Third Ward park that freedpeople bought for Juneteenth in 1872, rebuilt in 2017 on Emancipation Avenue and still the center of the city's June 19 celebration.

More markers nearby

• First Baptist Church of League City — steps away
• League Park — steps away
• Contributions to the Texas Rice Industry by Seito and Kiyoaki Saibara — 2.5 mi
• Webster Presbyterian Church — 4.1 mi