Home |  PublicationsEncyclopedia |  Our Lady of Guadalupe Church

The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE CHURCH.

As early as 1908 Mexican nationals were at work in the coal fields of the McAlester area. In that year St. Edward's Catholic Church, at Pittsburg, Pittsburg County, was built to serve their spiritual needs; it was still in use at the end of the twentieth century, serving a predominately Hispanic congregation. A decade later there were Mexicans among the zinc smelter workers at Henryetta and Collinsville, and by 1925 the Catholics in Dewey were primarily Mexican smelter workers. In the 1920s there were also Mexican coal miners working near what is now Fifteenth Street and Sheridan Road in Tulsa. Our Lady of Guadalupe Church was built for them in 1928. Priests exiled from Mexico ministered to them until 1937, at which time the Seher Coal Company closed.

The church stood vacant until 1940, when it was moved to Tulsa's north side, at Newton Street and Trenton Avenue. A more substantial complex was later built at the same site. As the Hispanic population of Tulsa expanded beyond the capacity of this church, Our Lady of Guadalupe was merged with the nearby parish of St. Francis Xavier in 1992. At the beginning of the twenty-first century the former Our Lady of Guadalupe Church served as a Hispanic cultural center.

James D. White

Browse By Topic

Immigration and Ethnicity

Explore

Place
Other

Learn More

Urban De Hasque, Catholic Churches That Were (Perry, Okla.: St. Rose of Lima Parish, Vol. 7, No. 5, August 1938).

James D. White, This Far by Faith, 1875–2000: 125 Years of Catholic Life in Oklahoma (Strasbourg, France: Editions du Signe, 2001).

Citation

The following (as per The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition) is the preferred citation for articles:
James D. White, “Our Lady of Guadalupe Church,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=OU003.

Published January 15, 2010

Copyright and Terms of Use

No part of this site may be construed as in the public domain.

Copyright to all articles and other content in the online and print versions of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History is held by the Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS). This includes individual articles (copyright to OHS by author assignment) and corporately (as a complete body of work), including web design, graphics, searching functions, and listing/browsing methods. Copyright to all of these materials is protected under United States and International law.

Users agree not to download, copy, modify, sell, lease, rent, reprint, or otherwise distribute these materials, or to link to these materials on another web site, without authorization of the Oklahoma Historical Society. Individual users must determine if their use of the Materials falls under United States copyright law's "Fair Use" guidelines and does not infringe on the proprietary rights of the Oklahoma Historical Society as the legal copyright holder of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and part or in whole.