‘Piece of history’ for sale in Gallup
Over the years this now vacant lot at the corner of Fourth Street and Aztec Avenue in downtown Gallup has been used for a variety of purposes, including a gas station and auto repair show that closed after a vehicle caught fire in one of the work bays. The Diocese of Gallup is now offering to sell the commercial lot, which was once the planned site for the Sacred Heart Cathedral. [photo by Jeff Jones / Independent]

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff writer

GALLUP — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Gallup is offering a commercial lot for sale in downtown Gallup that once was a piece of would-be history.

Nowadays, the property at 400 W. Aztec Ave. isn’t much more than a dusty vacant lot, but in the early 1950s it was the promised site of a prominent city landmark. In 1953, the property was set be the future home of the new Sacred Heart Cathedral, designed by noted Santa Fe architect John Gaw Meem. The Most Rev. Bernard T. Espelage, the first bishop of Gallup, lived just west of the site in the historic C.N. Cotton House, which he purchased in 1941 to serve as both his residence and the diocese’s first chancery office.

According to the cathedral’s dedication program of June 17, 1955, plans to build a new cathedral were postponed for a decade due to World War II building restrictions and post-war building costs. By July 1953, the diocese awarded the building contract to the Brunetta Construction Company, which quickly broke ground on July 20, 1953. However, less than a month later, construction on the foundation was halted after workers struck “water and muck” below the surface. According to the dedication program, it was soon determined the property couldn’t support the weight of such a huge structure as the cathedral, and the site was abandoned. A few months later, diocese officials reached an agreement with the Sisters of St. Francis who operated St. Mary’s Hospital, and the cathedral was built just south of the hospital on East Green Avenue.

Since that time, the downtown property has been mostly empty, with the exception of a gas station than was demolished several years ago. Located on the northwest corner of Aztec Avenue and 4th Street, the lot is west of Wells Fargo Bank, north of Lowe’s Super Market — formerly California Super Market’s Downtown Plaza — and catty-corner to Pinnacle Bank.

Lee Lamb, the communications director for the Diocese of Gallup, said the diocese is currently seeking bids on the 19,888 square foot lot, and interested purchasers must submit a written purchase offer by certified mail by the Thursday, May 15, deadline. According to Lamb, the minimum purchase price is $129,000, cash only. By Monday, May 19, diocesan officials will notify all prospective purchasers if their offers have been accepted or rejected.

“The diocesan finance council determined and agreed that the property no longer has immediate value to the mission of our diocese,” Lamb said in an e-mail. “The money from the sale of this property will be used to establish a fund for future diocesan contingencies and obligations.” Lamb said the diocese is not currently attempting to sell other property in either New Mexico or Arizona.

According to disclosure information Lamb provided, “Remedial action has been undertaken at the site to clean up contamination from underground storage tanks that once existed on the property, under the auspices of the New Mexico Groundwater Protection Act’s Corrective Action Fund.” Prospective buyers are directed to obtain further information about the status of the remediation from the New Mexico Environment Department.

The property just south of the lot used to be known as “Vatican Hill,” according to Octavia Fellin, Gallup’s longtime city librarian. A small adobe church was built there in 1889, which was replaced by another church in the same location after a wall collapsed in 1916. That second church went on to become Gallup’s first Sacred Heart Cathedral after the diocese was created in 1939. In addition to the church, the city block now occupied by the Lowe’s grocery store, also eventually featured the K-8 Sacred Heart School, a high school, and a Franciscan monastery. According to Joe DiGregorio, all those early church buildings were demolished by 1965 to make room for his family’s California Super Market.

After Espelage’s death in 1971, the chancery office was moved to its current location on South Puerco Drive, and the Cotton House was sold to the DiGregorio family in 1977. The historic home was eventually razed after being damaged by a fire, and in 1984 the property was sold to Rico Motors, which now has its new truck lot on the site.
Information: Diocese of Gallup: (505) 863-4406