St Mary's Roman Catholic Church

Condensed from Fred Baumgartner’s History of St. Mary’s

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the few Catholics of Montgomery County were served by visiting priests who offered Mass on an irregular basis, but usually not on Sunday.  The first mention of Blacksburg appeared in the 1911 Catholic Directory (for 1910) as a station of St. Mary’s of Wytheville in the Diocese of Wheeling, WV.  Not long after, Blacksburg’s Catholics were able to erect a small chapel on North Main Street. It was named Sacred Heart Chapel and, in 1918, Blacksburg was listed in the Catholic Directory as a mission of St. Mary’s, Wytheville.

Bishop Patrick Donahue of Wheeling authorized the purchase of land on Wilson Street in 1921, and Rt. Rev. John Swint, the new bishop of Wheeling, approved the construction of a small wooden church. Funds came from the sale of the chapel on Main Street and other gifts and donations. Construction was completed in 1923, and it was dedicated as St. Mary’s on the first Sunday of June, 1924. St. Mary’s community continued to grow and was soon large enough to become a parish in the Wheeling Diocese, which occurred on September 1, 1938, with Father George Walter as its pastor.  

With the end of the World War II, the surge in veterans attending VPI and the increase in the number of faculty members created a need for a larger worship space. The classic Carolina granite building on Progress Street, where the rectory had stood, was finished in 1948.  The building on Wilson Street became the parish hall.  St. Mary’s continued to grow. When long-time parishioner, Mrs. Martin J. Bresnahan, died in 1965, her heirs agreed to sell a piece of land on Harding Avenue to the parish. 

The purchase was completed in 1968. Three years later Father William Gardner saw to the purchase of a house on Harding Avenue across from the parish’s property to serve as the rectory.  The living quarters attached to the church on Progress Street were transformed into office space.

In 1974, St. Mary’s and the other parishes of southwest Virginia were transferred to the Diocese of Richmond under Bishop Walter Sullivan.  The rapid growth of Virginia Tech and arrival of new industries in the county were straining the capacity of the church on Progress Street.  In 1978, the Parish council appointed a Building Committee to oversee design and construction of a new facility on the parish’s property on Harding Avenue.  Groundbreaking took place on June 29, 1980, and the new church was dedicated on October 25, 1981.  The stone church on Progress Street was sold to St. Francis Anglican Church, and the parish hall on Wilson Street became the Odd Fellows’ lodge.  

When St. Mary’s parish celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 1988, it had about 375 families. One way to relieve the demands on the pastor created by the large congregation was the ordination of permanent deacons, and in 1992 Dr. Michael Ellerbrock became St. Mary’s first married deacon. 

By the year 2000 the need for a larger facility was obvious. In September 2000, Father Arsenault arranged for the purchase of thirty-five acres of land on Old Mill Road.  Ground breaking took place on June 18, 2006, and the building on Harding Avenue was sold to Blacksburg United Methodist church.  On June 8, 2008, the first Mass in the new church on Old Mill Road was said. Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo dedicated it on July 29.  Late in 2012, a formal census of the parish members took place, revealing that as of June 2013, there were 573 families in the parish.