South of Purcell, the towns along the Santa Fe line are named in sequence for stops on the Philadelphia main line, so that Ardmore received its name from a corresponding city in Pennsylvania. Monks from Sacred Heart visited the Indian Territory town as early as 1889, but a church was not built in the 1898. In the meantime as a succession of priest from Purcell and Norman offered Mass in private homes.

Dick McLish, chairman of the Chickasaw tribe, donated the land for the church and school at Ardmore. Construction funds were provided by Father Raphael Chewey and his sister Mathilda, Belgian friends of Bishop Meerschaert. They made a donation of $1,800. With this sum a church was built in 1897 and furnished with a main altar, pews, and vestments.  

The church was dedicated to Our Lady of Prompt Succor (also known as Our Lady of Perpetual Help), because in December 1895 the Bishop has been stricken with the Bright’s Disease, and he credited his almost miraculous recovery to prayers offered at the Shrine of Our Lady of Prompt Succor at the Ursuline Convent in New Orleans.

The church was dedicated on August 28, 1898. That same day the bishop also dedicated in Ardmore the new Saint Agnes Academy for girls, serve by the Sisters of Mercy and built with the financial assistance of Saint Katherine Drexel.

With the completion of the church and of the two room rectory the congregation received its first resident pastor, Father Francis Hall. He remained in charge for five years. He was followed by Father Peter Wilwerding from 1902 to 1905, and then by Father James J. Wallrapp, who would serve until 1929.

The new church was severely tested and it’s early years. In 1906 and again in the spring of 1915, violent storms nearly destroyed the church building. Then, on September 27, 1915, a gasoline-filled tank car in the nearby railyard exploded, blowing out several stained glass windows. This famous disaster, which killed 51 persons, and cause nearly a million dollars in damage, became the catalyst for greatly improving safety procedures for the transport of volatile substances.

In 1950, Father Alexander Andrews, a British missionary who had worked in Burma as a translator with the 45th infantry division World War II, arrived in Oklahoma seeking a reprise for his health. The parish had been raising funds for a new church, and Father Andrews oversaw construction. On December 8, 1951, Bishop McGuinness dedicated the new building under the title of Saint Mary, Our Lady of the Rosary. A new school soon followed, which continued until 1966.

Taken from Roman and Oklahoman A Centennial History of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City by James D. White