Retigiot~s Conmumities of illeu in Texas
227
Guadalupe College attracted many boarder students, as well as local day students. It prospered for a short period, then encountered the usual financial difficulties that plague private institutions. The worried Jesuits were glad to return to Mexico in 1880, when the expulsion order was rescinded. They closed Guadalupe College and moved the seminarians to St. Joseph's College at Victoria. This college was founded in 1868 by Father Augustine Gardet as a school for boys. It was expanded into a seminary in 1880 to accommodate the Jesuit seminarians. Many of the older priests of the San Antonio diocese received their training here. Not all of the Jesuits at Seguin returned to Mexico. Several of the Fathers remained to take care of missions at San Marcos, Lockhart, Luling and Gonzales. They were joined by Father F. P. Garesche, S.J., in 1883 as Superior. There were Jesuits also at Cuero, Graytown and at other missions in Bexar County for many years. 41 The pioneers of the Church in present El Paso, which did not exist as an incorporated town until 1859, when the old post office of Franklin, Texas, was rechristened El Paso, were the Jesuits.' 1 At the invitation of the Most Reverend J. B. Salpointe, Vicar Apostolic of Arizona at the time, soon to become the second Archbishop of Santa Fe, they came to take charge of Ysleta. Fathers Carlos Persone, S.J., and Joseph Mon- tenarelli, S.J., Superior and Procurator respectively, arrived in El Paso from Las Vegas on October 15, 1881. They were warmly welcomed by a committee of prominent citizens and the curates of El Paso of del Norte and Ysleta, Fathers Ramon Ortiz and Peter Lassaigne. The m~st urgent need, it appeared to the new curate of Ysleta, was a church in El Paso proper. Father Persone, who went to the latter town once a month to celebrate Mass, either in a private residence or the old Central Hotel, appointed a committee to raise funds for a new chapel. So successful was the committee that on August 2, 1882, property was bought on North_ Oregon street, at the intersection with Wyoming street, some say three, others four lots,., where a chapel was started on August 18, 1882. This was the beginning of St. Mary's parish. The chapel was ' 1 The above summary is based largely on the data in the Archdiocese of San Antonio, Diamond lt,bilee, 1874-1947, in the article on "Most Reverend Anthony Dominic Pellicer, First Bishop of San Antonio, 1874-1880," pp. 34-37, which w;s prepared by the Most Reverend Laurence J. FltzSimon, Bishop of Amarillo. ' 1 Sister Mary Lilliana Owens, S.L., Carlos M. PitiJo, Apostle of El Paso (Revista Catolica Press, El Paso, I 9 S 1 ) , 2 6, 3 1. '!Cf. Diocese of El Paso, Texas Centennial CelebraU011, 1836-1936, p. 12, and Owens, op. cit., 38-39.
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