By Mary Drier
Staff Writer
GAGETOWN — Despite a variety of efforts to save Tuscola County’s oldest Catholic church, it’s closure is only days away.
At the last village meeting, Robert Mosack presented the Gagetown Council with a petition signed by concerned neighbors wanting to give historic St. Agatha Church a proper anniversary celebration as it closes its doors.
St. Agatha’s requested South Street be closed so the church could celebrate its 135th anniversary and the closing of the church July 1. The celebration would be on Saturday, June 21, with a 100-foot long tent erected for the celebration and then taken down the following Monday.
As part of the Saginaw Diocese’s re-organization, 109 parish communities were reviewed. From that, it was decided 29 of those churches will no longer hold regular services, and 106 parish communities will merge to 56. Under the change, St. Agatha will become an occasional-use church, which means it will close and can only be used with permission of the diocese to open to perform marriages and funerals of current members.
The council approved closing the street as well as providing road closed and detour signs for the event.
A lot of history of Catholicism in the Thumb area can be traced back to St. Agatha’s Church, at 4618 South Street in Gagetown, which is one of the churches slated to close next year under the Saginaw Diocese’s “Planning Tomorrow’s Parishes,” re-organization.
The church’s beginnings date back to the 1870s.
Father Clements T. Krebs was the first resident priest in the county. He said the first Catholic mass in Gagetown in a wagon shop. It was because of the missionary efforts that the religion grew in Tuscola County and the surrounding counties.
Mary Drier is a staff writer for the Tuscola County Advertiser. She can be reached at drier@tcadvertiser.com.