First Chapel in Roma
Roma, Starr County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built by volunteer labor, on donated site, of contributed materials, about 1840. In the years before Oblate Fathers arrived (1853) and built church, some 500 confirmed persons had received sacraments in this chapel from secular priests who lived in Mier.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Around 1840, in the borderland community of Roma along the Rio Grande, residents built a small chapel with volunteer labor on donated land and from contributed materials. For more than a decade before the Oblate Fathers arrived in 1853 to build a proper church, this humble structure served the faithful — some 500 people received the sacraments here from visiting secular priests who lived across the river in Mier, Mexico.
Why it matters
The chapel reflects the deep-rooted Catholic and Mexican heritage of the lower Rio Grande, where cross-border ties of faith and family long predated and outlasted the shifting political boundary.
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