The Old Town on-Off Trolley drove by the Basilica of St. Mary Star of the Sea but is not on one of their Stops. So on Sunday after visiting the Southermost Point Buoy, I walked three quarters of a mile to the church. It is one of the oldest Catholic parishes in Florida. The church is on the National Register of Historic Places.
In 1868 five Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary arrived from Montreal, Canada, and established the first Catholic school in South Florida. The Convent of Mary Immaculate, the oldest educational institution in South Florida, had its humble beginnings in a framed government building, which was an abandoned Civil War barracks being used by locals as a goat shed.
In 1875 the Sisters began construction of a new building of native coral rock. (Coral Rock is no longer allowed to be used as a building material.) To save money on building costs, the sisters would work on the grounds themselves during their “leisure hours”.
The Grotto was designed and built under the direction of Sister Louis Gabriel and is buried in the on site cemetery. Sister Gabriel had survived three major Hurricanes since her arrival in Key West in 1897. Tradition tells us that her desire to keep Key West and its residents safe from future storms, she and the other Sisters who built the grotto prayed that Key West would never experience the full brunt of a hurricane again. As can be attested to, the center of a hurricane has not hit Key West since the erection of the Grotto in 1922.
The Convent has been more than an educational facility. During the Spanish-American War, the Sisters turned the Convent, along with the two school buildings, over to the U.S. Navy for use as a hospital.
Numeric Orange Balloons correspond to those shown on below map.
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