Stanton

Stanton, the county seat of Martin County, is on Interstate Highway 20 100 miles south of Lubbock in the southeastern part of the county. In 1881 the Texas and Pacific Railway built a two-story section house, a pump, and a water tank at a small settlement in Martin County then known as Grelton. While searching for a place to establish a German Catholic colony, John Jacob Konz of Anderson County, Kansas, met Charles Froesee, who surveyed the land around Grelton and marked off town lots. Konz returned to Kansas and organized a settlement party, and on August 15, 1881, five men, including Konz's son Adam Konz and Father Christian D. (Anastasius) Peters, arrived in Grelton. In October 1881 a load of lumber arrived, and the first buildings and homes were built. The next year Konz built a general store. The elder Konz led more Kansas settlers who arrived in 1882, and two of Father Peters's cousins were part of a group which came from Pocahontas, Arkansas. In 1883, the year a post office was granted and J. B. Konz named postmaster, another settlement party arrived. Father Peters and his brother Boniface, also a priest, wrote promotional bulletins and even traveled to Germany to publicize the colony. In 1885 Father Anastasius and others organized a sale of town lots. Citizens constructed the first permanent courthouse and petitioned the railroad to change the name of the town to Marienfeld (German for "Field of Mary"). There being no objection, the railroad agreed. By 1885 Marienfeld had several businesses including a hotel, a wagonyard, several stores, a courthouse, a jail, a school, the Catholic complex, and railroad operations.

Within three months of their arrival Konz and Father Anastasius had built the first Catholic church in West Texas. A year later they built a two-story adobe monastery for the Carmelite order, of which fathers Anastasius and Boniface were members, which also housed the first school in West Texas. In 1894 a group of nuns of the Sisters of Mercy arrived and opened the Convent and Academy of Our Lady of Mercy. The school, for many years the only Catholic academy between Fort Worth and El Paso, attracted students from all of West Texas. The convent and monastery also served as a base for mission activities. While the priests traveled regularly to Big Spring and Midland and occasionally to towns as far away as New Mexico to say Mass, the nuns opened schools and hospitals in Big Spring, Pecos, Menard, Fort Stockton, and Slaton.