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Until 1910, with the establishment of St. Mary parish in Kelso, the Catholic population of the lower Cowlitz area was served by visiting priest, arriving by horseback, or by sternwheelers on the Cowlitz and Columbia Rivers. Masses were celebrated in homes, and later in an abandoned Methodist church.
In 1923, the Long Bell Lumber Company established the City of Longview and its mill on a flat plain across the river from Kelso. By 1927, the new city and its Catholic population had grown sufficiently for Bishop O'Dea of Seattle to establish a permanent parish for the growing Longview area. The four mission churches of Castle Rock, Kalama, Woodland, and Cathlamet were attached to it.
The new parish, dedicated to St. Rose of Viterbo, was under the tutelage of the Franciscan priest from St. Francis Mission near Toledo. By 1928, under Fr. Leonard Bose, OFM, a new church and rectory were constructed on property at the corner of 26th Avenue and Nichols Blvd. The new parish was now serving a Catholic population of 185 families.
The Franciscans continued to servie St. Rose through the Depression years and early World War II when in 1941 Fr. Patrick Mulligan was appointed pastor by Bishop Shaughnessy. Fr. Mulligan served the people of St. Rose for 33 years and continued to live in the rectory until his death in 1977.
In 1943 the missions of Woodland, Kalama, and Castle Rock were detached from St. Rose. That same year the Sisters of St. Joseph of Newark (later to be changed to St. Joseph of Peace) purchased St. John Hospital. The pastor of St. Rose assumed the chaplaincy until 1948 when it was taken over by the Jesuit Order.
In 1950 St. Rose completed the new ten-room parish school with seven sisters of St. Joseph, opening its doors to 260 children in Kindergarten through 6th grade.
The decade of the 40's had seen the population of St. Rose grow to 700 families. With such steady growth, the wood framed church constructed in 1928 had become inadequate. The new church and rectory where completed in 1959.
By 1981, faced with the liturgical changes from the Second Vaatican Council, and the changing needs of the growing parish, parishioners established two priorities for the parish's future. First, to bring the church building to the norms of Vatican II and to the needs of the worshipping community; and second, to provide a parish center to better fulfill the social and administrative needs of the parish.
The newly renovated church project was completed in 1984 under the pastorate of Fr. Richard Basso. Then in 1994, under the pastorate of Fr. Hans Olson, the parish moved into its newly constructed Parish Center.
In 1984, St. Catherine Mission was again detached from St. Rose to be served by the pastor of St. Mary in Castle Rock; then in 1995, with the realignment of parishes, the mission was reattached to St. Rose.
By the fall of 1998, the parish school of St. Rose was educating 243 students in preschool through eighth grade. |
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| Fr. Mulligan with the St. Rose students. |
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| Sister Cecelia taught here when the school first opened in 1950. She is still involved in the parish today. |
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