As recorded in the book "Tulsa - This Far by Faith 1875-2000, 125 Years of Catholic Life in Oklahoma" by Fr. James D. White, Historian, Diocese of Tulsa

Muskogee's First Church, located on South Second Street, was dedicated on August 15, 1891, to Our Lady of the Assumption. The next year Muskogee became the headquarters for Father William H. Ketcham, the pastor of some 18,000 square miles --- all of northeast Oklahoma. He opened Nazareth Institute, a mission for Creek children, in 1893. In time this became a parish school. It closed in 1932. In 1911 the original frame church was replaced by a much larger brick building on Third Street. This is still standing, though it was closed in 1992 and sold.

Between 1903 and 1955, the Brothers of the Sacred Heart from Metuchen, New Jersey, operation St. Joseph's College, a high school for boys. It stood on a large tract east of town. A second parish on Muskogee's west side grew out of a misunderstanding between Bishop Meerschaert and Father Joseph Van Hulse, the pastor of Assumption. The new parish was created early in 1921, with Father Everard Vander Grinten as pastor.

A long rough shed was cobbled together in a few day for the initial services, held on Ash Wednesday, and Mass was offered for the first time in a permanent brick church-school building on September 4. Father Vander Grinten served until 1933. Bishop Kelley had no one with whom to replace him, so Sacred Heart became a mission of Assumption until 1937. Under the next pastor, Father Joseph Campbell, the parish built a new church, and Bishop McGuinness dedicated this on Palm Sunday, 1951.

In 1939, Father Joseph Wersing, S.S.Sp, a Holy Ghost Father residing as chaplain at St. Joseph's College, began an apostolate to black Catholics in Muskogee. He first offered Mass at a funeral home on South Second Street, but in 1941 he started work on a permanent church, located at Fifth and Denison. This was completed in 1943. St. Augustine's closed, however, in 1969.

In 1964, the parish elementary schools at Assumption and Sacred Heart were amalgamated into a new institution, St. Joseph's School, which was built on the site of the former St. Joseph's College.

The misunderstanding that helped create Sacred Heart parish also gave rise to a sustained friction between the two white Catholic congregations in Muskogee. In 1980 a shortage of priests caused the two churches again to be served by a single pastor. Through the rest of the decade parish councils and societies were joined into one, as successive priests worked to repair the damage done in 1921. The process was concluded in 1992, when both Assumption and Sacred Heart parishes were closed, and a new entity, St. Joseph's, opened next to St. Joseph's School.