History :

The history of St. Joseph's Parish of Spreckels begins in the late 1800s. A community of people from Chicago moved to the Salinas Valley west of Spence. They were Catholics and called themselves the Saint Joseph colony. In 1898 they built themselves a church. A few years later the colony dispersed, the leaders returning to the Midwest and most of the others moving into Salinas. The church and the land it was on came into the possession of Sacred Heart Church in Salinas. That colony of people in their brief existence could not know that they had left a lasting memorial. They contributed the name to our parish.

In 1910, Rev. Patrick Browne, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Salinas, became concerned about the members of his parish who were working at the Spreckels Sugar Company. There was a growing number of Catholics in the small town, Spreckels, which had been built close to the Spreckels Sugar Refinery for the convenience of the workers. In order to serve these people, Father Browne decided to move the old St. Joseph Colony Church to Spreckels, onto a piece of property that the Spreckels company donated for that use. The church was built on the southeast corner of First and Llano. At that time the priests from Sacred Heart in Salinas served the community of about thirty members. This group of people, gathered in that small church, was the seed of our parish.