Viewed with suspicion by their neighbors both because of their nationality and their religion, they received the sacraments only occasionally from travelling priests before the establishment of St. Mary's Church in 1853.

In its earlier decades, the membership included many families who lived in the countryside surrounding Mechanicsburg, and the members' devotion to their church prompted a local author to declare them "extremely faithful in attendance on its services".

Numerous details produce a distinctive Gothic Revival appearance, including the ogive-arched windows and their stone hood molds and the arched bay surrounding the entrance and transom.

It was part of a multiple property submission of approximately twenty buildings,[1] scattered throughout the village in such a low concentration that a historic district designation was not practical.

[9] Along with Champaign County's other Catholic churches — St. Mary's in Urbana, Sacred Heart in St. Paris, and Immaculate Conception in North Lewisburg — it is a part of the Springfield Deanery.