Diocese sells chapel to the town of Alta

Friday, Jul. 18, 2025

ALTA — The Diocese of Salt Lake City has sold its Our Lady of the Snows Chapel in Alta Canyon to the town of Alta. 

The decision came about due to challenges with staffing, maintenance and prohibitively expensive insurance premiums.

“With two parishes within five minutes of the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon, there are adequate opportunities for the faithful to attend Mass and enjoy the life and ministry of a full parish,” said Father John Evans, vicar general. “It was not so much a desire to close, but a practicality.”

To facilitate the sale, diocesan and town officials began meeting in February.

The town was very interested in acquiring the building; the land it sits on is owned by the Forest Service.

“We wanted it to be a community resource,” said Jen Clancy, the Town of Alta’s recorder. “We wanted it to be available for all the nonprofits, and especially a home for Alta Community Enrichment, and be available for our community members for things like weddings and things like that. So we didn’t want to see it go into private ownership or anything like that. We wanted it to be protected.”

The town purchased the building from the diocese for $980,000. After the account is settled, any remaining proceeds will go to a new endowment at the Catholic Foundation of Utah, which will be named after Our Lady of the Snows. It will be “for the benefit of the missions and stations throughout the diocese,” Fr. Evans said.

“The building is great as is, and it functions wonderfully,” said Clancy, adding that the town may alter the building to allow the restrooms to be accessed from outside. “Our community really struggles with that type of resource, and we have a lot of hikers and backcountry skiers. We may be able to do something that provides a really great resource there.”

“It was a really great experience working with Father John Evans and Deacon [John] Kranz,” she added. “They were very supportive of us and working with us. The Church has kept the facility in great condition, and we just look forward to continuing to provide that resource for our community.”

Deacon Kranz is the diocese’s chancellor.

The 2,000-square-foot building that was sold was dedicated on March 27, 1994, by then-diocesan administrator Monsignor J. Terrence Fitzgerald. It is the third chapel on the site.

The first building, capable of holding 60 worshippers, was dedicated on Dec. 28, 1960, by the Most Rev. Joseph L. Federal, sixth Bishop of the Diocese of Salt Lake City. It became a mission of St. Therese of the Child Jesus Parish in Midvale and remained so until 1972, when the mission was assumed into the territory of the newly established Blessed Sacrament Parish in Sandy.

An avalanche severely damaged the first Our Lady of the Snows in December 1973. According to the Desert News (March 7, 1992), “the avalanche blew out the church’s stained-glass windows and filled the building with snow before rolling downhill to damage a wing of the Alta Lodge, destroy dozens of cars, and injure a canyon resident. The church carried insurance including an act of God clause that covered most of the cost of rebuilding.”

The second building was also severely damaged by an avalanche in May 1983, leading the diocese to order its demolition. Between 1983 and 1994, Alta’s Catholic community and visitors met for Mass at the town library.

Joan Collins, a parishioner of Blessed Sacrament Parish in Sandy and caretaker of Our Lady of the Snows Chapel, spearheaded early fundraising efforts to build a new chapel, the third for the site. After Collins died in a skiing accident in 1989, her family requested that donations be sent to a Church fund established for the project. The community’s response enabled the construction of the new chapel. Father John Norman, chaplain to the Alta community since the early 1980s and a now-retired priest of the diocese, secured permission from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service to build the chapel on Forest Service grounds.

Masses have been celebrated in this building during the ski season for more than 30 years. Many people planned their ski trips around Masses at Our Lady of the Snows, and Fr. Norman often saw families return year after year, he said.

“I didn’t always see the same people every Sunday, but frequently, I saw the same people every year on that Sunday,” he said. “And in 40 years, I watched families who brought their small children; soon those were grown-ups, and they were bringing their children.”

Our Lady of the Snows “was a remarkable presence there in the canyon,” he added.

When it was not being used for Mass or other religious services, the diocese allowed the building to function as a community center. This space has been critical to the community, which has used it for Alta Community Enrichment (ACE) activities, classes, film festivals and workshops, Clancy said.

“In many ways, ACE has been the underlying support for the many community groups and the public that came to use it,” Fr. Evans said. “Thank you, ACE, and may your participation in cooperation with the Town of Alta provide you with another 30 years and beyond of being able to enjoy Our Lady of the Snows Center.”

Town officials are equally grateful to the diocese for providing the building as a community space and for maintaining it so well. 

“There’s no other space or facility like this, and they’ve been excellent stewards of it, both themselves, in providing those services to community members that are up in the canyon but also making it available for others,” Clancy said. “In Alta, there are a bunch of private homes, but there aren’t that many gathering spaces outside of the bars. So, [the chapel is] a gathering space for community to come together that isn’t associated with that type of activity.”

Fr. Evans expressed appreciation for the Town of Alta “for their desire to keep Our Lady of the Snows as a resource for the people in the Town of Alta.” 

The town also requested and was granted permission to use the signage and name Our Lady of the Snows Center, “as they desire to give homage to the beauty and presence of the Catholic Church’s ministry in the town and their longstanding affection for Our Lady of the Snows,” Fr. Evans said.

The building’s altar, ambo and sacristy items have been moved to the Cathedral of the Madeleine rectory, where a new oratory has been created for priests and bishops to celebrate Mass during their visits. 

“It will also serve as a wonderful prayer space for the priests in residence,” Fr. Evans added.