By Gretchen Keiser

In all his years in the priesthood, Father Joseph Ware has never had to build a church. But events in the last few months in LaGrange, Georgia, where he is pastor, have changed that record dramatically.

Not only will St. Peter’s parish in LaGrange be building a new church, but they will be building it on the site of a mammoth, red brick textile mill which has been donated to the church by Milliken and Company. Since negotiations began last fall, the parish has become the owner of the 165,000 square foot mill, a dominating water tower with the Milliken logo on it, and several warehouse buildings. The mill, which has been closed for several years, is located on over six acres of property on Route 109, the main road into LaGrange from Interstate-85. The donation by Milliken and Company, whose main headquarters is in Spartanburg, S.C., was announced in March.

The “surprising” and generous gift to the church began, said Father Ware, when he mentioned to the St. Peter’s congregation last fall that it was time to think about a new site to build an enlarged church. With the addition of new industry in LaGrange, and the importing of management staff from headquarters in the Midwest and North, the Catholic community in LaGrange has been growing rapidly.

“In 1978, when I came, there were about 185 Catholic families in LaGrange,” said Father Ware. “Now there are 280.” On Easter Sunday, people were spilling out the doors and down the steps of St. Peter’s. The high school religious education classes started meeting on Wednesday nights because there were too many students in the other grades meeting in the school building on Sunday mornings. Right now, St. Peter’s Church, a rectory, a parish hall and a religious education building are grouped together on a small piece of property at Church and Battle Streets in LaGrange, with no room to expand the little church, which started in 1935.

After his first mention of the need to find a new site, Father Ware was approached by a parishioner, John Parkins, who is also an executive with Milliken and Company. He pointed out that the mill, known as the Calumet plant, had been vacant for several years and wondered “if we might ask Mr. (Roger) Milliken to give it to us,” Father Ware recalled. Negotiations began rather quickly about the gift, the pastor said. While it is unusual for a church to receive a textile mill and site, lock, stock and barrel, the Milliken company is known for making donations to communities where it has plants, Father Ware said. While the precise value is not known, the land and buildings have been estimated at over $1 million.

The parish has not yet taken formal possession of the mill, the pastor said as he walked around the perimeter of the site, describing it as typical of the textile mills built in the 19th century, with open rooms longer than a city block and thick floors supported by beams to buttress the weighty textile machinery.

Asked about the technical and financial questions raised by the ownership of a mill and other buildings, Father Ware chuckled softly and said he was “subletting” as much of the technical work as possible to a group of parish committees. Overseeing all the issues is John Parkins, who is responsible for coordinating the whole project. Other parish committees are interviewing architects, considering how to dispose of the present site of St. Peter’s and adjacent buildings, reviewing financial matters and other topics.

While no architect has yet been selected, the consensus of those interviewed so far is to tear down the existing buildings on the mill site and begin anew, the pastor said.

Nasor Mansour, chairman of the architectural committee, said one of the questions being considered is whether any of the valuable material in the mill, such as old bricks, wood floors and beams, can either be reused in the new facility or salvaged for other uses. While the committee is interested in reusing what is valuable Mansour said, “we don’t want to let the tail wag the dog, so to speak,” and the needs of the new church must prevail.

The donation of the mill and site “is a very generous gesture and we’re very happy,” said Mansour, who is a member of one of the founding families of St. Peter’s in LaGrange and, with his brothers, runs Mansour’s department store and men’s store in the heart of the city.

He noted that the new site “on the busiest street in LaGrange” will make the Catholic Church very prominent and a landmark as visitors enter the city. Because of the special site, “we want to put something there that will speak of the majesty of the Church and still be warm and inviting,” he said.

Several of those involved in the project noted that a special factor in LaGrange is the generosity of the Callaway Foundation, which historically has matched, dollar for dollar, funds raised by local churches for building campaigns. Because of this, there is a desire on the part of parishioners to raise as much money as possible for the building campaign without going into debt. Among the possibilities is using money from the sale of the existing St. Peter’s site to cover the cost of demolishing buildings at the mill site. It is hoped that the new site will house a church, rectory, social hall and religious education building.

Enthusiasm for the project and for the growth of the church is running high. While Catholics are a minority in LaGrange’s 25,000 population, they are believed to be the fastest growing congregation, said Father Ware. He also noted that the church has gained attention in the last few years for its outstanding St. Vincent de Paul program, which has been providing some 400 Christmas dinners to families in need and which has handled some 300 cases of need in the last two years, most among non-Catholics.

George Mansour, Jr., who is in charge of publicity for the new building project, noted that there is an active youth group and good attendance at religious education classes. Growth in the parish has been such, he said, that all three Saturday night and Sunday morning Masses are filled to overflowing.

“We want to be able to participate and have more functions here together, but we can’t without expanding,” he said. He also noted that the donation of the property and the local publicity has attracted the attention of some who may not have been active in the church, but are now drawn back.

“We’re excited,” he said. “It’s just something we’re really looking forward to.”