After settlements were established near Utah Lake in the mid-1800s, people of the Catholic faith began slowly gravitating to Utah Valley. By 1893, there were enough people of that religious persuasion in Provo to open the city's first Catholic church. Members of the church renovated a large adobe house that year and used it as a place of worship. They named it St. Peter's.

More than two decades later in 1916, people of the parish made plans to tear down St. Peter's and replace it with a new church. Many local business firms and all of Provo's other religious denominations contributed toward the new edifice, but the parish made little apparent progress toward building another structure until 1921.

In June 1920, Father Joseph G. Delaire, a French priest, replaced Father Michael F. Killeen as the spiritual leader of the Provo parish. The next year the Catholic church bought a piece of land on the corner of 500 West and 200 North and made plans to build a new church there. The Provo Post reported that Father Delaire did not plan to build the entire church at that time. He thought the financial burden would be too heavy for the congregation to bear. Delaire intended to build only the basement of the building and use it as a temporary place of worship until church members could afford to build a proper church. When the new structure was completed, Delaire wanted it to be a church of which Catholics and all of the other people of Provo could be proud.

The Post went on to say, "Father Delaire is a firm believer in the future of Provo as one of the leading cities of Utah, and the Catholics feel that by this undertaking they are materially contributing to its improvement; and they know that in this they will have the hearty sympathy and co-operation of their fellow citizens, irrespective of creed, who are interested in the progress and development of the Garden City."

The people and other churches of Provo did support the Catholics in their quest for a new church. Mormon Stake President Thomas N. Taylor (affectionately referred to as T.N.T.) and his counselors offered the Provo Tabernacle as the site of a benefit concert for the purpose of raising money for the new Catholic church. Even though the evening of Saturday, May 7, 1921, was a stormy one, a large, appreciative audience attended the benefit organ recital and concert.

In mid November 1921, contractors began excavating for the foundation of the new church and the rectory, which was begun to the south of the church. Delaire hoped the workmen would finish the excavation that year, complete the basement in 1922 and build the rest of the church sometime in the not too distant future. Provo architect Claude Ashworth drew up plans for a $20,000 Italian Romanesque structure similar to picturesque churches that brightened the sunny plains of Lombardy in Italy. It would seat 500 people.

As is often the case, work progressed slower than planned. Contractors Nielsen & Christiansen did not finish the basement until the fall of 1923. An article in the Daily Herald stated that workmen also hoped to finish the rectory in September of that year.

On November 4, 1923, Father Delaire presided over the formal opening of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in the newly completed basement. On that occasion, he thanked LDS Church members for the help they had given to Provo's Catholics in the past. A choir directed by BYU professor J.R. Boshard, provided the music for the occasion.

There was one notable absence during that first meeting. Rocco Rita was not present when Father Delaire opened the new church. Rita had died at his home seven months earlier on Sunday, April 1, 1923. Fittingly, his funeral took place in St. Peter's, the old adobe home that Rita had helped Father Scanlan renovated into Provo's first Catholic church in 1892-93.

Driven by the intention of improving the spiritual and material interests of its boys and young men, the Catholic Church developed another site in Utah County in the 1920s. Many people will be surprised to learn that in 1925 the church dedicated a camp for boys in the South Fork of Provo Canyon. The new facility received the name Camp Glass in honor of Rt. Rev. Joseph S. Glass, bishop of the Utah diocese who was active in getting the camp established.

Camp Glass, under the direction of Father J.S. Keefe, nestled into the woods and meadows near where the Provo city park is located in South Fork today. W.H. Ray, prominent banker, real estate man and former mayor of Provo, and S.E. Cotterell from Salt Lake City donated the land. The encampment consisted of a large frame kitchen, a dining tent capable of seating 100 people, and ten, eight-man, army tents with wooden floors. Other amenities included a swimming pool and a baseball diamond. The church ran the camp for an undetermined number of years.

During the early years that Father Delaire and his growing flock met in their basement church, their semi-subterranean meeting place was made beautiful by the construction of a reproduction of the famous Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes. The original grotto was located in the Pyrenees region of France. Craftsmen completed the small, cave like structure in the mid 1920s, and Edmund Kearns, a wealthy Salt Lake City resident, paid for it.

Catholics continued to raise money to complete the Church of the Immaculate Conception. Another benefit concert took place in the Provo LDS Tabernacle in 1924. An orchestra and chorus consisting of 40 girls from St. Mary's Academy in Salt Lake City performed. Several of Provo's leading musicians participated as well.

In 1931, priests belonging to the Franciscan Order, the same order followed by Fathers Dominguez and Escalante, assumed the administration of the Provo Parish. Father Victor Herring served as its leader from 1931 to 1934. Father Kevin L. Grange guided the congregation from 1934 to the end of 1935 when Father Henry Stendebeck assumed responsibility for the parish.

Father Stendebeck supervised plans for the completion of the church in 1936 during the Great Depression. This was 13 years after the completion of the basement Church of the Immaculate Conception. Provo architect Claude S. Ashworth drew up revised plans for the building. Possibly in an effort to reduce expenses or in deference to the Franciscan Order which now administered to the Provo congregation, the new plans closely followed the design of the Spanish built Mission San Antonio, located in California near the San Simeon estate of William Randolph Hearst.

Franciscan fathers built the Mission San Antonio during the same period that Fathers Dominguez and Escalante, also Franciscans, visited Utah Valley. It is interesting to note that while the two fathers visited the valley, they named the Provo River the San Antonio.

The new blueprints called for a somewhat simpler Mission style building with stucco walls and tile roof. Interior plans showed a vestibule in front, a nave, or center auditorium, and two sacristy rooms. Ashworth planned to convert the basement into space for recreation.

Work on the new $12,000 edifice began in September 1936 and moved along rapidly. In order to pay for their new church, Catholic fund raisers solicited donations from wealthy church members living in other areas of the state. Many of them contributed generously to its construction.

At least one Utah Valley resident went even farther. In 1936, LDS residents of Mapleton were also building a new chapel to replace the old ward meetinghouse that had been built in 1892, the same year that Utah Valley Catholics began renovating St. Peter's, their first church in Provo. Joseph Carnesecca, a resident of Mapleton not only donated $500 toward the construction of the new Catholic church in Provo, but he also contributed $500 toward the construction of the new LDS church in Mapleton. Then, according to Lena DeRose who is Carnesecca's daughter and a current Mapleton resident, her father and his sons used the family's team of horses to dig the basement of the Mapleton building.

Workmen rapidly rushed the new Church of the Immaculate Conception to completion, and dedication ceremonies for the building took place on December 21, 1936. More than 300 people attended. Many of them were non-Catholics. That morning, James E. Kearney, Bishop of the Diocese of Salt Lake, dedicated the new church in Latin and in English. Dressed in white vestments, he completely circled the outside of the church, blessing each corner and each wall with holy water.

Following the blessing of the interior of the church, Bishop Kearney changed from his white vestments into his red ones in honor of the feast of St. Francis and began solemn high mass. A choir augmented by local LDS vocalists sang Wiegand's Mass of the Immaculate Conception.

After the mass and preceding his sermon, Father Kearney addressed those present. He thanked Father Henry, benefactors who contributed to the building, architect Ashworth and the choir for their good work. The Evening Herald quoted the concluding words of Bishop Kearney's remarks concerning the new church: "And so we commit it to its appointed task, this Church of the Immaculate Conception and with it our thoughts, our hopes, our prayers, and fears."

As soon as the ceremony concluded, church and local officials joined with interested members of the Catholic congregation and local townspeople for a luncheon at Keeleys Café on Center Street. In a show of unity between the Catholic and the local community, Provo Mayor Mark Anderson, BYU President Franklin S. Harris, Father Henry and Bishop Kearney all spoke at the luncheon. The theme of Harris' talk was, "Our On December 20, 1936, the Herald announced the first midnight Christmas Mass to be performed in the newly completed building. Father Henry invited the general public. Two young students, Monroe Paxman and Shirley Brockbank, accepted this invitation. They attended the mass during their first date, which Monroe later remembered was the least expensive and most impressive date in town. The couple must have been impressed with something other than the ceremony; they have now been married 64 years.

Almost nine years after the church was completed, plans developed for the consecration of the building on Sunday, September 30, 1945. The Most Rev. Duane G. Hunt, Bishop of the Salt Lake Diocese, accompanied by a large entourage of important Catholic Church officials and a 42-member choir from the Cathedral of the Madeleine, traveled to Provo to participate in the ceremonies.

Both the church and its new Vermont marble altar designed by Architect Ashworth, received blessings before an overflow crowd of 350 people. According to the Herald, the building became only the second Catholic church in Utah to be consecrated. Only substantial buildings constructed of stone or a similar solid material were eligible for consecration.

The impressive stucco structure not only received a blessing, but it also received a new name. From that time forward, the building has been called the Church of St. Francis of Assisi. Spanish officials living in Santa Fe may not have been able to establish a new mission in Utah Valley in 1777, but by 1945, Provo had a consecrated Spanish Mission style church that would have made Fathers Dominguez and Escalante very proud.