St. John de LaSalle Parish stands very close to the spot where Western New York’s first Christian house of worship stood more than 300 years ago. In 1679, Father Louis Hennepin accompanied the explorer LaSalle on an expedition of the Upper Great Lakes. LaSalle’s party built their ship, The Griffon, on the Little Niagara River. Nearby, Father Hennepin had a hut built for the intrepid crew to celebrate Sunday Mass. St. John de LaSalle Church is heir to that legacy.
St. John de LaSalle Parish was founded in 1907 as the first Catholic church in the Village of LaSalle, which was later annexed into the City of Niagara Falls. Originally located in a former German evangelical church at 8636 Buffalo Avenue, St. John’s built a new church-school-hall building at 8477 Buffalo Avenue in 1918. That building remained home to the church until 1960, when the current church was built just steps away. The church-school-hall building housed St. John de LaSalle School until the school’s closure in 2006; it now houses the parish office and meeting space, along with an early childhood program that is separate from the parish.
St. Charles Borromeo Church, located at 5604 Lindbergh Avenue in Niagara Falls, was founded in 1944 as a mission of Prince of Peace Parish. It became an independent parish in 1970 and acquired a reputation as “the country church in the city.”
St. Charles Borromeo merged with St. John de LaSalle in 2007 as part of the Diocese of Buffalo’s Journey in Faith and Grace restructuring process.
Our full parish history — The River Flows On — tells the fascinating story of these two proud Catholic communities and their legacy in the LaSalle community.
St. John de LaSalle Church 