The Society To Preserve Antiquated Town Structures, or ST PATS, formed over 10 years ago to preserve the former St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Dougherty, along with the former school building and the former rectory structure.
ST PATS Board President Dennis Campbell tells RadioOnTheGo News that the first few months after receiving the property were not easy, starting out with a wind storm.
“I don’t know how much of the roof of the church off a lot of the shingles. Decided they were going to go in the neighbor’s yards. And with the insurance company we had came out and they looked at the policy and they said, oh yeah, this is covered pretty good. So by the grace of God, we had new roof put on. The church itself has three gas furnaces in it. Every once in a while one of them will get a little hiccup and I think now we’re down to one. School itself has a boiler system and it’s got two boilers in there and we’ve had to replace both of them now in the last 10 years.”
An open house is being held Sunday from 1-4pm, that will include the display of the Nativity Scene purchased before 1900.
“1898, the local priest challenged the school kids if they could come up with $40, they needed a new nativity scene, new nativity figures. Over the course of a year, the little farm kids and town kids brought pennies and nickels. If you could bring a dime, that was a miracle, but they brought their nickels and pennies to church and gave them to the priest. And after, oh, it was months and months, they finally ordered and it was a mail order deal. They bought this nativity set and the first time it was displayed was in 1899 so we’re celebrating the 125th year of this nativity.”
The open house at the ST PATS facilities in Dougherty Sunday will also feature building tours and refreshments from 1-4pm.
