St. Joseph Catholic Church
Independence Trail Region
By 1860, German Catholics constituted roughly half of Galveston’s ethnic population. Seeing a need for German-language masses, Bishop Jean Marie Odin authorized the construction of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. Incredibly, the wood-frame church building survived the devastating hurricane of 1900 with only minor damage and was repaired, enlarged, and redecorated within a year of the storm. The church was an active congregation until 1968 and is now owned by the Galveston Historical Foundation.
Watch our Religious and Ethnic Variation in German Texan Communities video to learn more about German Texan cultural heritage in Texas. This video was produced for our German Texans mobile tour.