The Catholic Spirit asked our readers for their favorite Catholic historical sites in Minnesota.

My favorite Catholic historic site in Minnesota is the site of the first Catholic mission/church established in Minnesota in 1727 by two Jesuit priests somewhere near Sand Point in Frontenac. It was built within the walls of the French fur-trading post, Fort Beauharnois, by Father Guignas and Father Gonor, and has been missing for almost 300 years. The fort was built on the hillside overlooking the Mississippi River near Sand Point in Lake Pepin. It was flooded out in the spring of 1728 and rebuilt on higher ground near the original fort. Some historians believe it is located on a hillside in Frontenac State Park somewhere near the historical marker on Highway 61 one mile south of Frontenac Station. I and many historians believe it may be located on the campus of the former Catholic girls’ school, Villa Maria Academy, which has now been closed and sold to a St. Paul developer, who is renovating the school and convent into a luxury hotel/resort.

George Pett
Immaculate Heart of Mary, Minnetonka

Assumption Chapel in Cold Spring is a little chapel that represents a big miracle. From 1873 to 1877 the Rocky Mountain Locusts plagued Minnesota. People tried everything to destroy them. Nothing worked until they tried God’s formula found in 2 Chronicles 7:13-1: “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” People did just that. Gov. Pillsbury declared a statewide day of prayer and fasting for April 26, 1877. Two days later a snowstorm hit, destroying grasshoppers and their eggs. Some pockets of grasshoppers remained. Parishioners of Sacred Heart in Freeport prayed, and on the feast of the Sacred Heart, the grasshoppers lifted and flew east. Father Winters asked his parishioners to pray for Mary’s intercession. They built the Assumption Chapel in Cold Spring in her honor. By time the second Mass was said, the grasshoppers suddenly and staggeringly went extinct!

Pat Wittkop
St. Pius X, White Bear Lake

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