About Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Brownsville, Texas:
Immaculate Conception Cathedral is the cathedral church for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brownsville, which itself is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. On December 4, 1849, four fathers of the Oblate of Mary Immaculate arrived in Brownsville on horseback to establish a local parish. Seven years later, the first cornerstone of the Cathedral was laid. In 1859, the Church of the Immaculate Conception was completed, using 250,000 handmade bricks made as tithes by parishioners. The church is an excellent example of the Gothic Revival style, designed by Father Pierre Y. Kerralum, who studied architecture in France before entering the seminary. Serving as the first Oblate seminary in Texas, it housed priests fleeing revolution in Mexico. The site became a cathedral in 1874 when the Vicariate Apostolic of Brownsville was established.
On July 10, 1965, +His Holiness Paul VI established the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brownsville. Upon its establishment, the then Immaculate Conception Church was elevated to Cathedral Status and renamed The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. Since then, the Cathedral has served as the Seat of the Diocese and as the Mother Church to all 1.5 Million Catholics in the Rio Grande Valley.
On the grounds are three memorials: one dedicated to the Oblate missionaries, and a vault belonging to the family of Simon Celaya, a Spanish immigrant and organizer of the Rio Grande Railroad, and the final resting place of His Excellency the Most Reverend Adolph Marx, who was the First Bishop of Brownsville.
It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
Traveling to Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Brownsville, Texas:
Address: 1218 East Jefferson Street Brownsville, Texas
Phone: +1 (956) 546-3178