Stanton's Old Monastery Has Four-Foot Adobe Walls

Stand by the historical marker on Carpenter Street and look about 200 feet north. That is where Stanton's old Carmelite Monastery stands. Six German friars came to Grelton Station in 1882. They renamed the Texas & Pacific stop Marienfeld and began a German Catholic colony. In 1884, they built this building as their home, then added to it two years later.

From Marienfeld, the friars traveled across West Texas and eastern New Mexico. They served Catholic families along rail lines and started parishes. Their home had four-foot-thick adobe walls on a stone base. Pointed Gothic windows and a wraparound porch gave the building its shape.

The Carmelites sold the building to the Sisters of Mercy in 1897. The sisters opened an academy on the site the next year. They used the old monastery as their home and chapel. They left after a 1938 tornado swept through the complex. It is the only building left from the Carmelite years. The marker is along the public sidewalk; the historic building itself is on private property.