This is a photo of the St. Mary’s of Lourdes Catholic Church that is located, in the southwest corner of Section 16, in Worth Township of Woodford County, Illinois. It is about five and one half miles west of the town of Metamora. For those not familiar, Woodford County is east of Peoria, IL.

It was the second church for the members of the parish. The first was a log building erected from trees on the parishioners’ property and was built in the northwest corner of Section 21 of Worth Township, which is now the location of the St. Mary’s of Lourdes Cemetery. This first church was built in 1840 on land donated by Conrad Gindling. At that time the parish had the name of St. Raphael that had been organized in 1838 by eight Bavarian families that lived in the area called “Black Partridge”. This was the first Catholic Parish between La Salle, Illinois and St. Louis, Missouri. There seems to be no actual picture of this first church.

The second building was built of bricks, kilned at the brick yard owned and operated by Peter Wiltz, Jr., nee Wilz, located a short distance southwest of the church’s location. This new church, built in 1852-1855, was constructed on 10 acres of land sold to the church for $65.00 by Kilian Bergman, whose wife was the sister of Peter Wilz, Sr. In size it was 80 feet by 45 feet and cost $12,000. Although the exterior and interior of the building have been renovated, it still contains the original brick walls. It was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of The Immaculate Conception, but from 1855 it has been called simply “St. Mary’s Church”.

Photo taken in 1990 and text by Ken Wiltz