| Summary: | Holy Rosary Catholic Church began as a mission church out of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. Mass was offered in the parishioner’s homes. Most of the parishioners worked in limestone quarries, iron ore mines, and iron manufacturing plants. In 1889, Maclin Ross, the president of Gate City Land Company, bought the original property of Holy Rosary for only one dollar. The land was then deeded to Bishop Jeremiah O’Sullivan who built a simple church with a hand carved altar to accommodate the eighty or so parishioners of the time.
In 1955, Archbishop Toolen placed Holy Rosary under the sole care of Don Bosco thus making the church its own parish. In 1986, Brother Charles Todd arrived to the Salesian Oratory where the youth oratory began to grown and eventually developed into an after school program. He later organized a food pantry and clothes closet for the needy. In 2014, the remaining Salesian priests relocated to U.S. provincial headquarters. Holy Rosary Church, the Youth Oratory, food pantry, and clothes closet are now owned and operated by the Diocese of Birmingham.
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