St. Francis Xavier Church

The St. Francis Xavier Church is one of Burlington’s older churches, built in 1901. It replaced a frame building built in 1871.Parishioners excavated a basement beneath the existing building in 1954 and outfitted it as a church hall.

Mass was offered by missionary priests as early as 1859 in the Burlington area. Services were held in a log hut, a carpenter shop and a blacksmith shop. In 1871, Father Heller formed the ten Catholic families into a parish and construction of their first church at Third and Garrettson was completed in the summer of 1871.