Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Age claims the ‘old church’ in Tontitown; demolition begins
TONTITOWN — Fire took the first church. A tornado destroyed the second. Now, after 73 years, age claimed the third.
Demolition began Thursday of the “old church,” as it was commonly known, at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Tontitown. Consecrated for worship in 1944, the church hosted its last service 50 years later and has stood vacant since 1994.
The white chapel aside Henri de Tonti Boulevard and Barrington Road stood as a landmark for almost three-quarters of a century. Construction began after a tornado wrecked its predecessor. The church before that burned down. All were built on the same site.
The latest church, a bigger facility finished in 1994, sits directly east of the “old church.”
“It is a very important structure to many of my parishioners because they were either married there, made their First Communion or received their Confirmation in the old church,” Father John Connell, pastor of St. Joseph and St. Raphael in Springdale, said Thursday.
“The connection to this structure runs deep. For many, this is the church of their childhood.”
The old church hasn’t been in use, even for storage, since 1994.
“Well, you can imagine that after 23 years of not being used plus being 73 years old,” Connell said when asked about whether restoration was an option.
The building is beyond repair and, in addition, is “full of asbestos,” he said. This fire-resistant material was commonly used for construction in the 1940s, but has since been found to be a health hazard, especially when particles are spread during renovation. Saving the building was cost-prohibitive, he said.
“The parish has been talking about what to do with this old church for 23 years,” Connell said. “In the past, there was discussion about fixing up, restoring it and so forth, but years of inaction and age led to its demise.”
The final decision was made by the pastor, the parish council and its building and finance committees. The contract for demolition was signed by the bishop for Arkansas. The old church was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 2, 2006, but that designation doesn’t impede demolition, being strictly honorary.
All items of any religious purpose were removed from the old church in 1994 when the site was “deconsecrated,” Connell said.
“We have formed a memorial committee and by June of 2018 a plan will come forth on what type of memorial to construct on the site,” he said, in honor of the old church. “The bell tower will remain standing and we will determine if it will be used in any memorial we construct on the site.”
If the memorial doesn’t use the tower, the tower will also come down next summer, he said.
Efforts to either raze or preserve the old church date to at least 2008, according to news archives. Beverly Cortiana of the Tontitown Historical Museum, said at the time the old church “really was the center of Tontitown community life.”
Legend has it that the first Catholic church and school used by Italian immigrants was set afire by an anti-immigration gang in 1898. The immigrants put out the flames and found an image of St. Joseph on a scorched wall was undamaged. The parish was renamed St. Joseph’s in honor of the event. The first church was dedicated in 1900. Fire struck the compound and school in 1927 and a tornado destroyed the replacement church in 1934, leading to a four-year delay before settlement of insurance claims and a fundraising campaign allowed new construction to begin.
There is local support for a Catholic high school in the region, but there are no plans to build it on the grounds of St. Joseph, Connell said. Ozark Catholic Academy signed a five-year lease last month on space inside the Father Bandini Parish Education Center at St. Joseph in anticipation of opening in the fall.