Only a handful of people still call the small town of Braddock home. But Emmons County’s oldest town has always had a strong Catholic identity. The parish there, St. Katherine’s, recently celebrated 75 years in the diocese.
Bishop Kagan celebrated Sunday Mass there on June 30 with a dinner that followed to celebrate this special milestone.
History of the parish
In 1883, when Braddock was established, there were very few residents. After 1898, the Soo Line Railroad was routed into Braddock and more people arrived. In 1886, priests crossed the Missouri River from Fort Yates and rode in a lumber wagon to visit the Catholic people of Emmons County.
Benedictine priest, Father Bonaventure Hansen, OSB, began offering Mass in the town’s hotel in 1906. In 1910, Braddock became a station (a place where Mass was said without a church) and was served out of Bismarck.
Braddock became a mission in 1913. Plans were made to build a church, and it was completed in 1914 at a cost of $1,800. The church was located south of the railroad tracks. Another Benedictine priest, Fr. Bonaventure Goebel, OSB, was the first priest assigned to the church called Epiphany.
After 1922, the nearby town of Hazelton had a resident pastor, Fr. Florian Krank, who also cared for Braddock until 1927, when the community of priests and brothers known as the Missionaries of the Precious Blood (CPPS) took over responsibility of the parish.
Braddock got a resident priest in 1944 when Fr. Cyril Ernst, CPPS, moved to the parish. The church was destroyed by fire in April 1945. Later, the damaged church was moved north of the site of the present church, where it was repaired and used until the new church was erected. During those years, the church was known as St. Mary’s. In 1948, Father Vincent Mallifske, CPPS, came, and, with his direction and muscle, the parishioners built the present brick church. The church was then called St. Katherine, in accord with the wishes of a donor. The building as one of several designed by William Kurke, who designed the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, for the Bismarck Diocese. It has the same square lines that characterize the Cathedral in Bismarck.
About 15 years ago, St. Katherine’s received a renovation mainly to the altar area when it secured many beautiful sacred items from St. Boniface Church located in a rural area near the town of Kintyre, which closed years earlier.
The Precious Blood fathers continued to serve the parish for many years into the early 1990s when the Bismarck Diocese began to send priests there to serve. The first diocesan priest to serve there was Fr. Jeff Zwack (1993-98) and he lived in Hazelton covering both parishes. Braddock is part of a cluster of parishes, along with St. Paul in Hazelton, served by the Church of St. Anthony in Linton where the current