St. Matthew Catholic Church

St. Matthew's first church went up in 1851 on a square facing Wood Street, now Anna Grey Noe Park. Jackson Street enters the story around 1898, in a swap with the city: St. Matthew received a lot on Jackson Street and gave the city its half of the lot and building behind the old Ouachita Female Academy, which became a public school. St. Hyacinth School is described as the ancestor of today's St. Matthew and St. Frederick schools. The old academy itself came down in 1901, after City High School was built on most of the lot.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Masur Museum of Art — 0.8 mi
  A 1929 limestone Tudor house on South Grand Street, built by a Monroe lumberman and given to the city in 1963 by the Masur family to become its art museum.
• Biedenharn Museum and Gardens — 1.5 mi
  The 1913 Monroe home of the man the museum credits with first bottling Coca-Cola, with a Coca-Cola museum, his daughter's Bible collection and her gardens.
• Chennault Aviation and Military Museum — 3.6 mi
  A Monroe museum that began as a 1986 reunion of Selman Field airmen and now holds Flying Tigers displays, Delta's Monroe beginnings and a park of retired aircraft.
• Northeast Louisiana Delta African American Heritage Museum — 5.5 mi
  A museum chartered in 1994 that tells the story of the Black pioneers of Monroe and northeast Louisiana, with local art, quilts and the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail's only Ouachita Parish stop.

More markers nearby

• Art Alley — steps away
• Prairie des Canots Seat of Justice — steps away
• The Ouachita Candy Company Building — 0.3 mi
• Ouachita Parish High School — 0.3 mi