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| Old St. Anthony's - Helper, Utah Father Petillo contacted the Catholics in Helper with a view of building a church. A committee of laymen was appointed, headed by Joseph Barboglio and a drive was made to raise funds. The ground was donated by the Helper Real Estate and Investment Company and in the year 1914 the church was completed. Old St. Anthony's was of rustic brick, English gothic design and remained the nucleus of catholicity in Carbon County until 1936 when fire destroyed the edifice. |
| First Holy Communion Class 1914 Rev. Stanislaus Bona - Pastor In 1914 Father Petillo was replaced by the Rev. Stanislaus Bona, later Bishop of Grand Island, Nebraska. Father Bona was assisted by Father T. O'Brien, Theodore Rosser and John Henry, a Vincentian who had formerly served in a leper colony. In 1914 the First Holy Communion Mass was celebrated in the Church by Father Bona. |
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| Helper Railroad Chapel 1899 In 1899 the Rio Grande Railroad had constructed a chapel near its passenger depot. It served as a school, a Sunday School and a general meeting place. Father Gildorf offered mass and cared for the needs of the Catholics in the Railroad Chapel after the burning of the Castle Gate Mission Church, for all faiths. It was, probably, the only chapel constructed by a railroad in the West. |
| Helper's First Communion Class 1909 Rail Road Chapel In 1908 Reverend J. Collins succeeded Father Gildorf. Under Father Collins the first regular Catholic catechism classes were organized, with Mrs. Phillip McGuire, Mrs. James Tracy, Mrs. Fred Buvia and Mrs R.P. Barrall in charge. From this class came the first group to make their First Holy Communion in Helper, which occured on May 30, 1909. |
| An Historical Look At St. Anthony of Padua Parish From A Catholic History of North Carbon County, Utah 90 Years (1883-1973) By Stanley V. Litizzette |
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| Carbon County, Utah, as its name indicates, is famous for its coal. Coal was King. A history of the Catholics of North Carbon County, must necessarily, be intimately wraped up with the history of coal. While coal was discovered in the Scofield-Winter Quarters area in 1877, the completion of the narrow gauge Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad Company in 1883 through the "Castle Gate" Price Canyon, provided the basis for major settlement of the North Carbon Area. Miners from many parts of Europe, colonized and settled the area. Italians, Austrian-Slavs, French and Irish sought work in the mine at Castle Gate owned by the Pleasant Valley Coal Company. By 1900 Carbon County was producing over a million tons of coal a year, with approximately fifteen hundred men employed in the mines. So many Italians were employed by the Utah Fuel Company at Castle Gate that the mine became popularly known as "The Italian Mine." The legendary Lawerence Scanlan, Vicar Apostolic of Utah and later Bishop of Salt Lake, sent priests into the area and personally visited, baptized, married and celebrated Mass in Castle Gate in the late 1880's, coming into the area on the new narrow gauge railroad. Mass in Castle Gate was first celebrated in Catholic homes and after Mass Scanlan would administer the Sacrament of Baptism. The demand for a church became so great that in 1897 a church was built in Castle Gate, under the direction of the Rev. Peter Bufalmonte. Tradition has it that Mass in the church was celebrated once a month and the attendance was so great that only the women and children were seated inside the building. The men stood on the outside of the church while Mass was celebrated. On May 1, 1900, 200 miners were killed in the Scofield, Utah, mine explosion and against this background in 1903 a general strike against Utah Fuel Company was called by the miners....Through the intervention of Gov. Heber M. Wells, and the Utah National Guard, the miners were forced to abandon the homes they had built on company property.......There were 225 houses owned by strikers which had been built on company property.....The company reopened the mine and won the strike, although the union did not completely capitulate until Dec. 1904. As a result of the eviction of the strikers, although the church remained, the attendance had diminished materially. About Christmas in 1907, a fire completely destroyed the little brown frame church. Father Gildorf, a priest from Salt Lake, had been given charge of the Castle Gate Mission and had been making freguent trips to the region. Many of the strikers settled in Helper, a railroad division point and a growing town. |
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| In 1910 Bishop Scanlan appointed the Reverend Anthony Pettillo to serve Helper and the surrounding area. |
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| In 1923, the church in Price was completed and in 1925, Sunday Masses were confined to Price and Helper. Catechism classes were begun in 1918 in Hiawatha, Castle Gate, Kenilworth and Sunnyside and these classes were held irregularly once a week. During the summer of 1924 and 1925, Summer Vacation School was established by the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent DePaul. This summer school is believed to be the first in the diocese of Salt Lake. Four of these Sisters came to Price when Notre Dame School was built in 1927. Notre Dame School was completed and dedicated by Bishop John j Mitty on April 15, 1928 and consisted of eight grades. |
| Daughters of Charity Old St. Anthony's First Communion Class June 29, 1930 |
| In the summer of 1936 old St. Anthony's burned to the ground. Saved from the fire was the statue of St. Anthony which still can be seen above the altar of the present church. After the fire, church services were again conducted in the Railroad Chapel where 40 years before the striking coal miners had gathered to worship. Father Ruel in the spring of 1939 decided to build the present church and on April 22, 1939 the cornerstone for the new church was laid. On Christmas, December 25, 1939, the new church was dedicated. |
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| On August 16, 1959, a school convent was dedicated by Monsignor Dowling. It was a combination convent, chapel and two classroom school, situated on approximately five acres of ground. After the convent was completed in August of 1959, the Sisters of the Holy Family began their work as kindergarten and catechetical teachers in St. Anthony's Parish. When the public schools opened kindergarten in 1969, the Catholic kindergarten classes closed. |
| St. Anthony's Convent - School - Erected 1959 |
| Although it is no longer used as a convent or chapel, St. Anthony's Parish Center is used for catechism classes for grades pre-school - Jr. High, as well as the "Summer Camp Bible Program" for Kindergarten - Jr. High children. |
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| Father Erik with Pope John Paul II - during visit to Rome April 2002 |
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| Sr. Michele Curtin with Pope John Paul II - Rome - 2001 |