Saint Joseph's Catholic Church is a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

located south of

Dubuque, Iowa Dubuque (, ) is a city in Dubuque County, Iowa, United States, and its county seat. The population was 59,667 at the 2020 United States census. The city lies along the Mississippi River at the junction of Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin, a region ...

in the community of

Key West, Iowa Key West is an unincorporated community in Dubuque County, Iowa, United States, near the extreme southern end of the city of Dubuque. Parts of the community are now within the city of Dubuque, while others are unincorporated. Owing to the presenc ...

. The parish is part of the

Archdiocese of Dubuque The Metropolitan Archdiocese of Dubuque () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or archdiocese, of the Catholic Church in the northeastern quarter of the state of Iowa in the United States. The Diocese of Dubuque was erected in 1837 and ...

. The church is across from Mount Olivet Cemetery, one of two main Catholic cemeteries for Dubuque-area Catholics. While people from St. Joseph's parish are often buried at Mount Olivet, the cemetery is not part of the parish.

History

The parish was originally established in 1872 by Father Thomas J. O'Reilly for the Catholics living just south of Dubuque in Mosalem and Table Mound

township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

s. Father James Ward was the first resident pastor. In the late 1940s another Saint Joseph's Church was established about three miles away in

Dubuque Dubuque (, ) is a city in Dubuque County, Iowa, United States, and its county seat. The population was 59,667 at the 2020 United States census. The city lies along the Mississippi River at the junction of Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin, a region ...

. This led to confusion on the part of people between the two parishes; at times one parish would receive mail meant for the other. As a result, St. Joseph's in Dubuque eventually changed its name to Saint Joseph the Worker Catholic Church in the 1990s. During the 1990s the parish seriously considered demolishing the current church structure and replacing it with a new building. However the parish decided to keep their current church building, and instead make improvements to the parish school. The school mascot was the Cobras.

References

{{Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dubuque, state=collapsed Churches in Dubuque County, Iowa

Joseph Joseph is a common male name, derived from the Hebrew (). "Joseph" is used, along with " Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the modern-day Nordic count ...

Religious organizations established in 1872 1872 establishments in Iowa