Mayor Linda Gorton, Bishop John Stowe of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lexington and the Kentucky Historical Society dedicated a replacement roadside marker – the other disappeared sometime in the 1950’s or 60’s, celebrating the establishment of Saint Peter’s Chapel, the first Catholic Church in Lexington at the corner of West Main and Felix Street.
St. Peter’s was a two-story log cabin built around 1804 and according to Saint Paul the Apostle Church historian Kurt Krouse is where the small catholic congregation in Lexington was first organized by Reverend Stephen T. Badin, the first priest ordained in the United States.
Krouse says the marker helps the community to more fully recognize the significance of Catholicism in early Kentucky and commemorate Lexington’s first congregation at St. Peter’s.
