A History of the Catholic Church in the Grand Island Diocese

Abstract

The Diocese of Grand Island, created in 1912, was originally included in the Vicariate of the Rocky Mountains in 1851, under the jurisdiction of Bishop Miege, S.J., which was successively divided into the Vicariate of Nebraska, January 6, 1857, with Bishop O’ Gorman as the first resident bishop, and on October 2, 1885, into the Diocese of Omaha under the jurisdiction of Bishop O’ Connor, and, finally , from a part of this territory on March 8, 1912, was erected the Diocese of Kearney with the appointment of the Most Rev. James A. Duffy, D.D., as its first Bishop. The Kearney Diocese, at its erection, comprised all the territory north of the Platte River and west of the counties of Hall, Howard, Greeley, and Wheeler, a territory of 38,000 square miles.