Immaculate Conception Catholic Church is a

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parish in Botkins,

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. Erected in 1865, the parish owns a complex of buildings constructed in a wide range of years, including two that have been designated as

historic site A historic site or heritage site is an official location where pieces of political, military, cultural, or social history have been preserved due to their cultural heritage value. Historic sites are usually protected by law, and many have been re ...

Early parish history

Immaculate Conception parish was organized in 1865 among a population of twenty-eight poor

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immigrant families.''History of Shelby County, Ohio With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers''.

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: R. Sutton, 1883, 220. A few Catholic families had settled in the vicinity of the village many years before, but their poverty had prevented them from supporting a pastor; accordingly,

Mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

was celebrated only occasionally by travelling priests. For many years, they worshipped in private homes or in a former schoolhouse, although a log church was built by the early 1860s. Soon after the creation of the parish, the members began to take measures to replace their church, and a new brick building was completed in 1867. Erected at a cost of approximately $8,000, this structure measured by , and it was crowned by a respectable steeple.Hitchcock, A.B.C. ''History of Shelby County, Ohio and Representative Citizens''.

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: Richmond-Arnold, 1913, 346-347. As the years passed, the parish grew; by 1883, its membership was eighty-two families. Increased membership permitted improvements to the church: it was remodelled and embellished by painter F.H. Hefele in 1898, and ornate

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windows were installed in 1899. From the parish's earliest years, it possessed a

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite, graveyard, or a green space called a memorial park or memorial garden, is a place where the remains of many death, dead people are burial, buried or otherwise entombed. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek ...

: a small plot north of Botkins was used for a time, and it was soon replaced by a more suitable location on the village's northern edge.

Rectory

Many parishes in the region constructed rectories for their pastors in accordance with an

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directive in the early twentieth century. Most of these houses are simple brick structures influenced by the style of the

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catalog of the day. The rectory at Botkins, built before this directive, is significantly different: its architecture is an ornate

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century It ...

.Brown, Mary Ann and Mary Niekamp. '.

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, July 1978. Accessed 2010-03-09. Its brick walls are built on a foundation of limestone, and the building is covered with a roof of asphalt.,

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, 2007. Accessed 2010-05-25. This two-

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house was the second rectory owned by the parish; its members bought and converted a house in 1875 before erecting the present structure in 1887 at a cost of $3,000.

School

Many parishes in the region also operated

parish schools A parochial school is a private primary or secondary school affiliated with a religious organization, and whose curriculum includes general religious education in addition to secular subjects, such as science, mathematics and language arts. The wor ...

from their earliest years. Some rural parishes, such as St. Rose's in St. Rose and St. Wendelin's in Wendelin, built

one-room school One-room schoolhouses, or One-room schools, have been commonplace throughout rural portions of various countries, including Prussia, Norway, Sweden, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal, and Spa ...

s for their children in the middle or late nineteenth century, while parishes such as St. Joseph's in Wapakoneta and St. John's in Fryburg erected larger two-story structures around the beginning of the twentieth century. Immaculate Conception's school was founded in 1881, when the parish purchased a church building formerly used by the Botkins

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Church. In 1883, the school's enrollment was ninety-three children: forty-nine boys and forty-four girls. A new parish school building was erected in 1921, adjacent to the church. This building was built of brick and supported by a concrete foundation;,

, 2007. Accessed 2010-05-24. it was a two-story building with a basement; among its most significant architectural features were the pillars at its entrance and the sharp contrasts at corners between walls. In this way, it was similar to parish schools at Celina and Coldwater, which were architecturally very similar to Botkins and to each other, and which were erected at a similar point in time.

Recent history

In 1961, the parish replaced its church building with a modern structure;Village of Botkins, Ohio, Founders Day Celebration 1858-2008
Botkins, 2008, 14. Accessed 2010-05-25. however, the rectory and school were left in place. These two buildings were listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1979: the school qualified because of its architecture, and the rectory both because of its architecture and because of its contribution to statewide history. Thirty-four other buildings in western Ohio were listed on the Register at the same time as part of the "Cross-Tipped Churches of Ohio Thematic Resources," a group of Catholic churches and church-related properties in rural western Ohio. These massive churches are the namesake of the region, which has been nicknamed the "

Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches The Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches is a rural region in the western part of the U.S. state of Ohio, centered near Maria Stein, Ohio, Maria Stein in Mercer County, Ohio, Mercer County. Its name is derived from the dense concentration of large Cath ...

." Today, Immaculate Conception is an active parish of the

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. It is clustered with Sacred Heart Parish in McCartyville and St. Lawrence Parish in Rhine, and the entire cluster is a part of the Sidney

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. Although the rectory retains its location adjacent to the church, the school has been destroyed, and a

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now sits in its place.View provided by

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picture This destruction was predicted in 1979 when the school was nominated for inclusion on the Register; the nominators noted that officials' demands for progress endangered many parish schools. Ultimately, the destruction was a result of the expansion of the local elementary school in 1985: until this point, the Botkins Local School District had been renting the unused parish school building, but the increased space produced by the expansion rendered the old school superfluous. Despite its destruction, the school remains on the National Register.

References

External links

Parish website
{{NRHP in Shelby County, Ohio German-American culture in Ohio Houses completed in 1887 Houses completed in 1961 Religious buildings and structures in the Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches Defunct Catholic schools in the United States Defunct schools in Ohio Demolished churches in Ohio Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Italianate architecture in Ohio Clergy houses in the United States Religious organizations established in 1865 Churches in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati Buildings and structures in Shelby County, Ohio Houses in Shelby County, Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Shelby County, Ohio 1865 establishments in Ohio Italianate church buildings in the United States