St. Joseph's Basilica

About this property

The Basilica of St. Joseph is a Roman Catholic church located in Alameda, California. Its history dates back to early settlement of the City of Alameda, California. A former mission church of St. Anthony's in Oakland, the parish of St. Joseph's was established in 1885. It is part of the Diocese of Oakland. The Basilica was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 18, 1978. The foundation of St. Joseph's can be traced to a Catholic mission in Alameda, created in 1873 by San Francisco Archbishop Jose Sadoc Alemany to serve the growing Roman Catholic population. Land for the mission church, on the southeast corner of Santa Clara Avenue and Chestnut Street had been donated by Mr. Minturn, a non-Catholic, and the first Catholic church in Alameda was built. The mission church built in 1873, was used as a place of worship for over twenty years. The mission was served by Father William Gleeson and the priests of St. Anthony's Church in Oakland. each Sunday Fr. Gleeson would ride horseback (or come on foot) to Alameda each Sunday to offer Mass and teach Catechism. With a growing congregation, Fr. Gleeson was assisted by Fr. J. B. McNally. Twice in a period of seven years the church was enlarged. Finally in 1881 a new church was built on the southwest corner of Chestnut Street and San Antonio Avenue. Fr. Gleeson had chosen this site for the convenience of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur who had just built a girls' school on the adjoining lot. Notre Dame Academy taught girls in grades one through twelve. Father Michael McNaboe served ten years as pastor of St. Alphonsus in Suisun, when in 1882, Archbishop Alemany recalled McNaboe from rural Solano County to San Francisco. Father McNaboe in 1885 was instructed by the new archbishop Patrick William Riordan to establish in Alameda, St. Joseph's Parish. The original parish boundaries were the City of Alameda. McNaboe died on March 1, 1892. Archbishop Riordan appointed Father John J. Sullivan, the pastor of the Old Saint Mary's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in San Francisco, to be the second pastor of St. Joseph's. Sullivan at once saw the need for a larger church. The laying of the cornerstone was August 12, 1894; Archbishop Riordan dedicated the gothic wooden church, January 20, 1895. Sullivan became ill and resigned as pastor of St. Joseph's in January 1898; Riordan appointed Father Patrick A. Foley, the pastor of All Hallows in San Francisco, in his place. After fifteen years in Alameda, Foley was appointed pastor of St. Raphael's Church in San Rafael, California. Riordan appointed Father James Bernard Praught as pastor of St. Joseph's Church in Rio Vista in 1906, followed in 1913 by appointment as pastor of St. Joseph's Parish in Alameda. Praught founded the St. Joseph Elementary School for boys and girls in 1916; the grammar school was completed in 1922.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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