RUIDOSA — The nonprofit restoring the historic adobe church on the border in Ruidosa has done significant work on the structure and has secured large grants for future work, but the organization’s leaders say they still need ongoing funding to support the efforts.
“We’re at a place that is extremely encouraging, but we still need money to ensure that we can hire the right people to help us with the work,” said Tom Griffith, president of the Friends of the Ruidosa Church, the nonprofit restoring the structure.
The nonprofit was recently awarded a $60,000 Historic Preservation Trust Fund grant through the Texas Historical Commission (THC) and is applying for historic preservation tax credits in coordination with the THC that could add up to $240,000 in funding to the project — an amount roughly a quarter of the project’s total cost. The tax credits are sold by brokers to private businesses that then pay up to 90 cents on the dollar to the nonprofit.
“When you think about how much work goes into raising even $20,000, the tax credit funding will be an astounding boost to getting our work done,” said Friends Vice President Mike Green.
Friends also secured a THC historical marker, which will be erected early next year, and it has applied to place the church on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Friends group was founded in 2018 to bring the El Corazón Sagrado de la Iglesia de Jesus — a Catholic church built in 1915 whose claims to fame include what is perhaps the largest adobe arch in Texas — back to its original glory, making it a focal point of the small border communities and providing a foundation for telling the history and stories of the area. Only a handful of people still live in Ruidosa, which lies about 38 miles west of Presidio on Highway 170, but the town and its sister town of Candelaria, 12 miles further to the west, still attract numerous visitors because of their proximity to the nearby Chinati Hot Springs resort.
The group envisions the church as a space for community gatherings and events. The church was abandoned in the 1950s by the Catholic Diocese in El Paso after most of the population left the area with the damming of the Rio Grande in New Mexico and the lack of water for farming.
The church fell victim to time and weather, and its adobe bricks began to crumble. One of its bell towers collapsed in the early 90s, creating a temporary blockade on the highway to Candelaria.
“It’s a beautiful and impressive place,” Griffith said. “You feel this sense of awe of how it has survived so many decades standing almost alone in one of the most remote places in the country — a place that used to be a thriving farm community with residents from both sides of the border making it the center of their religious life, weddings, baptisms and funerals.”
Efforts in the early 2000s to restore the church faded away, and it looked as though the second bell tower would eventually collapse. In 2019 the Diocese deeded the land to Presidio County, who then turned over the property to the Friends group. “The formalized nonprofit with a dedicated and diverse board has been key to making progress, even if it’s slow but sure,” Griffith said.
Green, who is a retired architect, said the $60,000 THC grant will go toward a Historic Structure Report, a crucial document that maps out the history of the structure and the steps needed to restore it. The grant requires a $30,000 local match, which the Friends is seeking from a foundation. MUDLAB, a local architectural firm with experience in adobe construction, will do the report, which will show foundations and other funders that Friends “is a serious organization that has done its homework,” Green said. He credited former Friends president Clara Bensen with doing much of the work to get the grant.
Even without the report, the nonprofit knew that the remaining bell tower had to be the first step in restoration because of the danger it posed if it collapsed. The group raised the $45,000 needed for the work and late last year hired local adobe expert Joey Benton, who then used braces to stabilize the church walls and tower to then make significant repairs. It was the first work done on the church since 2010.
“We’re really happy that work was successful, but it also put a big dent in our bank account, and now we have to focus on getting enough smaller donations to make the prospect of bigger ones for the future work,” Griffith said. For example, he said the nonprofit needed to hire Post Oak Preservation Solutions — a consulting firm that has spearheaded numerous Texas preservation projects — to shepherd the group through its application for the tax credits. “Spending about a few thousand to get hundreds of thousands is a no brainer, but you have to have the money in the bank,” he said.
Green said that in addition to future work on the crumbled bell tower, Friends has its eye on reconstructing the small arch over the church’s front door and erecting the original bell that hung there. “‘Help us raise the bell’ is going to be our call to the local community and those from across Texas interested in historic preservation,” he said.
It’s not just donations Friends is seeking since the restoration needs adobe bricks. Periodic adobe brick-making events are held at the church and in Marfa, allowing volunteers to learn more about the project and help actually make the building blocks needed. The Historic Structures Report may be able to pinpoint exactly how many bricks are needed. “That will put some science into what we need, rather than my educated guess,” Green said.
Additionally, Friends traditionally hosts an annual Community Day, a chance to talk to visitors interested in restoration and celebrate the year’s successes with food, drink, art, music and traditional dances. The event, usually in the fall, was moved to the spring, tentatively set for late March. People that lived in Ruidosa — or had relatives from the area — often flock to Community Day from across the United States and relate to the Friends group their knowledge of the history of the area and its families.
Green said that overall the nonprofit is in a much better place to make progress than previous efforts. “We now have local expertise, which was not the case 10-15 years ago. In the past these skills would have been brought in from New Mexico and Arizona, if available at all,” he said.
“It’s such a cool project to be involved with,” Griffith said. “My job is to show others just how cool it is so that we have a broad foundation of donors and volunteers in the community to get the job done.”
For more information or to make a donation, visit ruidosachurch.org.
Disclosure: Rob D’Amico is a board member of the Friends of the Ruidosa Church.