St. Mary's Catholic Church

St. Mary's Catholic Church. . The community of Clarendon was established in 1878 as a Protestant community by Methodist Minister Lewis Henry Carhart. The construction of the Fort Worth-Denver railway in the Panhandle in 1887, and the selection of Clarendon as a division point on the rail line to Denver, brought an increase in population to the area. The newcomers included Irish and German immigrants many of whom were Catholic. , Priests periodically conducted Catholic worship services in public buildings or homes, traveling great distances around the Panhandle. In March 1892 a church site was purchased by Bishop Thomas Francis Brennan in Clarendon from R.E. Montgomery. The one-story wooden frame church building, completed in July 1892 and named St. Mary's Catholic Church, served a wide area. , St. Mary's Academy, a two-story Catholic school, was constructed here in 1898. Day and boarding students attended the school until its closure in 1911. , St. Mary's Church sanctuary fell into disrepair as membership declined in the 1930s and 1940s due to depressed economic conditions. Catholics of this region restored the building. The first Catholic Church in the Panhandle, the church was designated in 1951 as the Shrine of Our Lady of the Panhandle.