St. Michael's Catholic Church
Cuero, DeWitt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Rt. Rev. Anthony Dominic Pellicer, First Bishop of San Antonio, established St. Michael's Parish in 1875, after the Cuero Land and Immigration Co. donated this site for a church. The name was chosen in memory of Michael O'Brien, whose widow was one of the first members. A small frame church was erected in 1876, and the Rev. V. L. Manci, S.J., became the first resident pastor. St. Michael's Parish has operated a Catholic school since 1877. Construction was started on a larger building in 1886, a few months before the first church was damaged by the hurricane that destroyed the coastal town of Indianola. Many of the families who fled Indianola became members of St. Michael's Parish before the brick edifice was completed in 1892. As the parish grew, a new rectory was built in 1894 and new school in 1912. The present church was erected in 1931, through efforts of the Rev. Francis Pallanche, Pastor 1922-32. Soon afterward, the Rev. William Jansen began the longest pastorate in this church's history, 1937-66. Recent expansion has included a new school and convent (1955), rectory (1963), remodeling of school and church building (1960's), and new parish hall (1973). Today St. Michael's has a membership of over 400 families.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Established in 1875 on land donated by a land and immigration company, St. Michael's Parish took its name in memory of an early member's late husband and soon opened a Catholic school. Its growth was shaped by disaster: when the 1886 hurricane destroyed the coastal town of Indianola, many fleeing families found refuge and faith in Cuero, swelling the parish before its brick church was finished in 1892. Across the twentieth century the congregation kept expanding its churches, schools, and halls to serve a community of hundreds of families.
Why it matters
St. Michael's records how immigrant Catholic families—and the survivors of a vanished port city—wove themselves into the fabric of inland Texas.
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Related people
- · Anthony Dominic Pellicer
- · Michael O'Brien
- · Francis Pallanche
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Cuero Land and Immigration Company
Cuero, TX
Chartered in early 1872, the Cuero Land and Immigration Company set out to develop more than 4,000 acres carved from an 1833 Mexican land grant. Its founders were men of standing — among them civil engineer and congressman Gustav Schleicher and Fletcher S. Stockdale, who had briefly served as governor of Texas in 1865. By donating land to lure the Gulf, Western Texas and Pacific Railway, the company brought the first train in March 1873, touching off a land boom that made Cuero a thriving railroad terminus and civic center.
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This ground lay within Green De Witt's 1825 empresario grant and became DeWitt County in 1846, its seat shifting from Cameron to Clinton and finally to Cuero in 1876. Settled first by Anglo-Americans and, by 1860, half by German immigrants, the county sent its men into nearly every fight of the Texas Revolution — the Alamo, Goliad, Gonzales, and San Jacinto among them. The marker rolls out a long honor list of the pioneers and soldiers who founded and defended it.
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