602 S. Oregon Street
602 S. OREGON STREET- SACRED HEART CATHOLIC CHURCH
Sacred Heart Church was constructed and founded by Reverend Carlo Pinto in 1892. Pinto was a Jesuit immigrant from Naples, Italy who replaced father Penella on his mission to the borderland. Pinto’s reasoning behind constructing the church on South Oregon Street was because it was located in the heart of the Mexican quarter of El Paso. Throughout the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Sacred Heart not only served as the main Catholic church for people in South El Paso but was also a safe haven for Mexican immigrants fleeing the Mexican Revolution and the Cristero Wars (the 1920s-1930s). In addition, the church served as a parish school for many children living in Segundo Barrio during the early 20th century.
In April of 1893, about a year after the church’s construction, the first mass at Sacred Heart was held. Five years later, in 1898, a parochial rectory was built on the Church’s Southeast corner of Oregon and Fourth Street. The 12-room rectory made it possible to house all the Jesuit priests living in El Paso during the time. In 1900, a second floor was added to the original parish school building due to the school's increasing enrollment. Shortly after, in 1915, the parish school’s enrollment increased to over 800 students because of immigration from the Mexican Revolution, prompting Pope Pius X to grant El Paso its own independent diocese. Such a case was also similar during the Cristero Wars, as an influx of Mexican immigrants saw the parish school enrollment increase again. Nonetheless, Sacred Heart Church played a fundamental historical and religious role in early El Paso history and was the primary church for Mexican Catholics living in El Paso during this era.
Listen more here:
Cleofas Calleros on Sacred Heart Parish School
Maria del Refugio Solis, community member of Segundo Barrio
[Sacred Heart School], photograph, Date Unknown;(https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth680988/: accessed March 30, 2023), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Commission.
References:
Aoy School Faculty 1901-1902. Facebook.com/EPCHS. El Paso County Historical Society, June 5, 2017. https://www.facebook.com/EPCHS/photos.
Dailey, Maceo Crenshaw. Henry Flipper. Black Past. U.S. National Archives, February 12, 2007. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/flipper-henry-ossian-1856-1940/.
Koch, Augustus. “Bird's Eye View of El Paso, Texas.” 1886. Map.
Library of Congress. “Historias: El Paso Black History.” Web log. Henry Flipper: Digie.org (blog). El Paso Museum of History, 2021. https://www.digie.org/en/album/23656/14653.
Romo, David Dorado. Ringside Seat to a Revolution an Underground Cultural History of El Paso and juárez: 1893-1923. Louisville: Cinco Puntos Press, 2014.
Romo, David Dorado. Working paper. Urban History Project: Mapping South Oregon Street, El Paso, Texas. El Paso, Texas: Student Papers, 2009.
Rose, Charles A. Teresita Urrea Seeing a Patient. Photograph. El Paso, Texas, 1896. Texas Tech University.
Schaer, Bertha Archer. Rep. Historical Sketch of AOY School. El Paso, Texas: Student Papers, 1952.
The History of a Street: South Oregon. Institute of Oral History, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru4HTAqGS9A.