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Texas: Central, South, and Gulf Coast » South Texas » Brownsville to South Padre Island » Brownsville and Vicinity (Cameron County) » Immaculate Conception Cathedral

Immaculate Conception Cathedral

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1859, Father Pierre Yves Kéralum. 1218 E. Jefferson St.
  • (The Lyda Hill Texas Collection of Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America Project, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

No attempt was made here, as there was with Market Square, to alter the city grid and create a ceremonial space for the new church. It was constructed over a three-year period in Gothic Revival that was sophisticated, not only for Brownsville but also for Texas. Kéralum, an architect-cabinetmaker from Brittany who had joined the Oblate Order, was called to Brownsville after designing the church in Roma ( SM8). He configured the building into a Latin cross plan with an eighty-eight-foot-tall tower containing the bells of a steamboat. Originally stuccoed and scored to emulate stone, its buttressed exterior brick walls are topped by a parapet of continuous wheel patterns with open work. In the grounds, the marble, altar-like Celaya family vault contains the remains of Brownsville's most prominent Spanish immigrant family. The interior includes original wooden pews, stained glass windows, and a rib-vaulted ceiling covered with blue plaster from which hang original chandeliers.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.

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