Photo: Pam Brackett

A History of Our Building

The Jesuit priests, an ancient order of teachers, missionaries and carpenters in the Catholic Church, claim that their construction technology in the early 1400's led them to building five sets of portable rafters in Venum, Portugal.

The rafters were designed to be portable so that the missionaries could follow their avocation of building missions, one after another. The missions were designed in such a way that once the roof was complete, the rafters could be removed. The story goes that one of the five sents was transported overseas to Mexico from Portugal or Spain in the late 1700's where it was used for the construction of five missions between Tampico and Guadalajara.

Around 1880, the rafters traveled to Los Alamos, New Mexico for the construction of a new mission. In 1821, the rafters were again moved - this time for the construction of the first Catholic chapel at Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base, just south of Jacksonville, NC. The rafters' last move came in 1944 to Mooresville, NC for the construction of a Catholic church - the building where The Prickly Pear now resides.

The rafters are over 500 years old and represent some of the oldest building materials still in place today. They are made of "Taiban", a wood product that has been extinct for >>>>>. Around the mid-1500's the rate of Taiban use far exceeded the suply due to the tree's 100-plus year growth cycle and limited availability in Portugal and Spain.

Another confirmed point of the rafters' age is the use of 100% bronze bracing and joint coupling throughout the rafters' support system. Prior to the 1800's, and for many centuries, soft ferris metals like bronze represented the only metallurgical type of construction product.

In the remodeling done to our building in 1997, other than the application of protective coatings nothing has been done to alter the rafter support system.