About Wrangell, Alaska:
The town of Wrangel was was named after Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel, a Russian explorer and the administrator of the Russian-American Company from 1830 to 1835. Notice there is only one “L”in his name, unlike the city.The city of Wrangell is located on Wrangel Island, about 155 miles south of the Alaskan capital of Juneau, in the heart of the Tongass National Forest surrounding the famous Inside Passage. The Tongass National Forest is the nation’s largest national forest and covers most of Southeast Alaska.
About Saint Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Wrangell, Alaska:
The St. Rose of Lima Church is significant to state and local history because it represents the first Catholic parish in the State of Alaska (well, of course, it was a U.S. Territory and did not become a state until 1959). Through the years the building has been modified, with major changes taking place in 1926. Since then the church interior has not been significantly altered. The church began when Father John Althoff, a newly ordained priest, accompanied by Charles John Seghers, Bishop of Victoria, Vancouver Island, arrived in Wrangell in the spring of 1879. Althoff, himself a craftsman, enlisted the aid of Wrangell’s Irish Catholics and that year, they built the little church named St. Rose of Lima.
In April of 1898, the original church of St. Rose of Lima was in such a terrible state of dis-repair that it was torn down. The Catholics in Wrangell, however, wanted a new church. They began soliciting donations for a building fund in January, 1908. In August of that year, contractor H.D. Campbell hired the carpenters and work on the building began. More building supplies arrived that summer and by December the building was completed, financed entirely by donations. Leo McCormack is credited as the moving spirit behind the new church building.
In July, Father Brown from the Juneau parish presented McCormack the Cross of Pope Leo XIII and a certificate of merit from the Holy See
signed by Cardinal Merry Deval. It was the first decoration of its kind in Alaska. The church was dramatically altered by Father Monroe, Wrangell’s second resident priest. Father Monroe arrived in 1924 and rebuilt St. Rose of Lima Church, adding a library, a heating plant, and a new priest’s quarters equipped with a room for parish meetings. Monroe also dedicated himself to beautifying the church grounds.
In June of 1939, at the age of 84, Monroe retired to a Seattle hospital. At the hospital, doctors had discovered Monroe had broken his back in 1932 while working on the church (that certainly gives meaning to the term “back-breaking work”). Nonetheless, he continued to work at St. Rose for another seven years. By the summer of 1931, the major remodeling had been accomplished at an estimated cost of $4,000. Monroe continued detail changes in the interior of the church in 1932. He added pressed tin walls and ceiling along with wainscot under the windows. Fr. Monroe designed the interior and exterior changes himself as he worked alongside his help.
Through the years, diocesan clergy have served the parish of Wrangell. In 1985, Fr. Gerard Gottenbos, O.M.I., volunteered to the diocese to serve as pastor for St. Rose of Lima. Through the efforts of Bishop Michael H. Kenny, Fr. Gerard and the Oblate Conference of the United States, St. Rose became a permanent mission of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in 1990. The church remains basically unaltered since Father Monroe’s work in the 1930s.
Traveling to Saint Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Wrangell, Alaska:
The city of Wrangell is located on Wrangel Island, about 155 miles south of the Alaskan capital of Juneau, in the heart of the Tongass National Forest, along the Inside Passage between Juneau and Ketchikan. It is across the narrow Zimovia Strait from the mouth of the Stikine River on the Alaska mainland.
There is an airport in Wrangell (code WRG) and there is ferry service from Ketchikan and other cities on the Alaska Marine Highway System.
Address: 120 Church Street (P.O. Box 469) Wrangell, Alaska 99929
Phone: +1 907-874-3771 Click here to call
Click here for the official website of Saint Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Wrangell, Alaska