{"nrhp_refnum":"75000589","name":"Old St. Teresa's Catholic Church","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"313 Residence Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Albany","county":"Dougherty County","state":"GA","lat":31.583419567000078,"lon":-84.15469683099997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1975-04-01","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Religion"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A small one-story hand-made brick Gothic-style Catholic church at 313 Residence Avenue in Albany, Dougherty County, Georgia, built in 1859-60 under Father Thomas O'Reilly as a mission church of the Macon pastorate.","why_significant":"It is cited as the oldest Catholic church in continuous use in Georgia. It is also considered a representative example of frontier and small-town mission churches of the mid-nineteenth century, relatively unaltered and similar to designs in Richard Upjohn's pattern book Rural Architecture. It served as a hospital in 1862 during the Civil War.","narrative":"Old Saint Teresa's is a small, rectangular, one-story brick church on Residence Avenue in Albany, Georgia, built in 1859-60 under Father Thomas O'Reilly as a mission of the Macon pastorate. Its hand-made bricks, pointed Gothic doorway with a raised brick cross above, blank side niches, and six stained glass windows along each side give it a simple mission-church character, topped by a wrought iron cross. Nelson Tift, Albany's founder, sold the lot for one dollar in 1859. Work was interrupted by the Civil War, and the unfinished building served as a hospital in autumn 1862. The church was formally dedicated in November 1882, and a choir loft and new altar came in 1902. It is cited as the oldest Catholic church in continuous use in Georgia and is regarded as a relatively unaltered example of mid-nineteenth-century small-town mission architecture, comparable to designs in Richard Upjohn's pattern book. The congregation still worships there.","period_of_significance":"19th Century (specific date 1859)","architect_builder":"Built under the direction of Father Thomas O'Reilly; Tom Churchill, plasterer","architectural_style":"Gothic Revival (mission church)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Still used by the Albany Catholic congregation; in good condition, with restoration pending funding.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:40.928255-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_GA/75000589.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000589/40b4158f03-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75000589/40b4158f03-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Betty Rehberg","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_St._Teresa%27s_Catholic_Church_in_Albany_Georgia.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Betty Rehberg</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_St._Teresa%27s_Catholic_Church_in_Albany_Georgia.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/93207868","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_St._Teresa_Catholic_Church","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7085059"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/georgia/dougherty-county/old-st-teresas-catholic-church-75000589/"}