The Old Chapel, an Introduction
J.B. Turner

In the early part of this century Mexican settlers from Sonora and Baja California came to the Old Fort Lowell area. They were farmers and ranchers who were attracted to the abundant irrigation water from the Rillito, Pantano, and Tanque Verde washes and also the abandoned Fort buildings. The settlers clustered together forming a village called El Fuerte. By 1915, they had built La Capillita, a tiny chapel only large enough for a visiting priest to stand in and say mass, while the villagers worshipped outside under mesquite trees. Within five years the people had contructed a second and larger chapel, San Angel de la Guarda. This was destroyed by a tornado in 1929. The third chapel built by Los Fuertenos was San Pedro which was consecrated in 1932. It served the community until 1948 when the parish was moved to Saint Cyrils. The old chapel was deconsecrated and the property sold.

Those early families of El Fuerte were happy but poor. "We took care of each other, nobody ....went hungry or without a roof..." remembered villager Benny Ochoa. The Chapel was the center for religious and social gatherings. The large families with beautiful brown-eyed children came to mass dressed in their Sunday best. The children attended first communion classes, the young people formed Little Flower Clubs and choirs. The adults celebrated the holy days with fiestas and dances. "We'd sprinkle the ground with water. . . benches were put around the edges. . . ribbons and decorations added. . . a band. . . and danced.." Again Benny Ochoa remembered.

The Diocese sold the Chapel property in 1948 and there have been twelve property owners since then. Owners used it primarily for investment and commercial purposes such as a dance hall and a movies house. Most memorable of the owners, before the neighborhood bought the Chapel, were Jan Norris Hill and Nik Krevitsky. Jan Norris Hill converted it into her home by making the altar a bedroom, the sacristy a bathroom and enlarging the vestry into a kitchen. She added plumbing, a cement tile roof, and a fishing pond-fountain, (the blue paint on the floor at the south east corner is the ghost of that). She tore down some walls and added others. Many of her changes have been removed and changed back to the original state. Remaining to be done is to remove the plumbing and some of her added walls and to return the vestry to its intended configuration.

Nik Krevitsky bought the Chapel in 1965. He was a local artist educator and collector. He lived in the chapel briefly, but soon turned it into a gallery and workshop for artists. He cherished the Chapel and shared it with others. After the neighborhood's annual celebration, La Reunion de El Fuerte started in 1981, he encouraged his neighbors to use it for fiestas and fund raising events. Nik died in 1991. He had said that he wanted the neighbors to have the Chapel and his estate offered to sell it to them. The Old Fort Lowell Neighborhood Association, Inc. purchased the Chapel in 1993 after raising over onehundred thousand dollars in contributions and grants. The Association pledged to make the Chapel a center of neighborhood participation and pride.

Today the Old Chapel is again the center of the neighborhood. Its sagging walls have been buttressed and repaired, the roof returned to the original corrugated tin; the termite