Chapel of the Holy Cross

Built in 1955 (brutalist architecture). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.

From the record

“The Chapel of the Holy Cross is a Roman Catholic chapel built from 1954 to 1956 into the red rock buttes of Sedona, Arizona, within the Coconino National Forest. It was inspired and commissioned by local rancher and sculptor Marguerite Brunswig Staude, and was designed by August K.”
Wikipedia article Chapel of the Holy Cross (Sedona, Arizona), CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 140 National Register listings published here for Coconino County · listed in 2011 · category: Building · built in 1955, brutalist architecture.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service · the Wikipedia article

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building, 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Address. 780 Chapel Rd, Sedona, 86336
When was it listed? October 2011
Category. building
Census division. Flagstaff
When was it built? 1955
Architectural style. brutalist architecture
National Register reference number. 10000947 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

244 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 244 fires within 5 miles of Chapel of the Holy Cross between 1992 and 2020, burning about 5,933 acres in total. 70 started naturally. 1 was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	136
Natural	70
Equipment and vehicle use	12
Recreation and ceremony	10
Smoking	8
Debris and open burning	3
Misuse of fire by a minor	3
Arson/incendiarism	1
Fireworks	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
6 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State Office	not named
5 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State Office	not named
5 September 1997	Natural	under an acre	Coconino National Forest	LOOP
30 September 2010	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State Office	10-0002821
3 September 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Sedona Fire District	NOT NAMED
29 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State Office	not named
28 September 2014	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	1.0 acres	Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State Office	14-0003012
25 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management - State Office	not named

Every fire recorded in Coconino County

Mines and quarries near this property

4 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 4 workings within 5 miles of Chapel of the Holy Cross: 2 past producers, 1 unknown, 1 occurrence. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Borrow Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Borrow Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Occurrence	Sedimentary
Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sand and Gravel
Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown

Every working recorded in Coconino County

Storms near this property

19 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Sedona, the town this property stands in, in 19 storm reports between 1996 and 2024: 7 flash flood, 3 heavy rain, 3 hail, 2 flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
June 2024	Flash Flood	Sedona	-	Heavy rain from a thunderstorm caused a 2.3 foot rise on Oak Creek in Sedona.
March 2023	Flood	Sedona	-	The stream gauge on Oak Creek in Sedona rose above action stage at (7 feet) at 900 AM on March 21. It reached a peak of 16.35 feet at 600 AM on March 22 and then dropped below 7 feet around 1100 PM March 22. Flood stage is at 14.0 feet.
July 2022	Flash Flood	Sedona	-	Heavy rain caused Oak Creek to rise 1.5 feet at the gauge in Sedona (OAKA3).
July 2021	Flash Flood	Sedona	-	Heavy rain and rushing water caused a rock fall on Highway 89A just north of Sedona.
August 2016	Flash Flood	Sedona	-	The river gauge on Oak Creek in Sedona (Tlaquepaque) showed a 3 foot rise starting around 215 PM MST and peaked around 230 PM MST. The thunderstorm was moving from north to south through Oak Creek Canyon and then out over the Sedona area. Smaller washes then started flowing and caused the closure of several roads (Back 'O Beyond, Sunset Drive, and Doodlebug Drive).
September 2009	Heavy Rain	Sedona	-	Heavy rain fell over Sedona and flooded a portion of Highway 179 blocking traffic.
September 2008	Hail	Sedona	-	A thunderstorm produce hail close to the size of nickles from The Village of Oak Creek to Sedona.
July 2007	Flash Flood	Sedona	-	Heavy rain from a thunderstorm caused flooding in the Sedona area. Mud, boulders, and high water blocked Highway 179 south side of Sedona. Some vehicles were stalled in the high water.
June 2005	Hail	Sedona	-	Two resorts just north of Sedona reported 3/4 inch to 1 inch diameter hail for about 5 minutes.
August 2005	Heavy Rain	Sedona	-	A spotter in Sedona reported 1.46 inches of rain in 45 minutes. The power was knocked out.
July 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Sedona	-	Thunderstorm winds knocked down tree limbs in Sedona. Water was flowing over streets in downtown Sedona.
September 2003	Hail	Sedona	-	Quarter sized (1 inch diameter) hail was reported in southeast Sedona.
August 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Sedona	-	A tree was blown down in Sedona.
August 2000	Wildfire	Sedona	-	A lightning casued fire burned 84 acers on Mt Wilson in the Red Rock Secret Mountain Wilderness 4 miles north of Sedona. About 90 firefighters hiked in 5 miles to fight the blaze. A helicoper and an air tanker were also used to help put out the fire.
July 1999	Flash Flood	Sedona	-	Doppler radar estimates of 2 plus inches of rain per hour caused flash flooding and mudslides in Oak Creek Canyon. A 4 foot tall slab of mud was left on Highway 89A in the Indian Gardens section of the canyon. Nearby, the Schnebly Hill underpass was flooded with water three feet deep and debris across the road.
July 1998	Flash Flood	Sedona	-	Highway 89a just north of Sedona was closed due to mudslides and 3 feet of water across the roadway.Highway 179 in Sedona was closed due to flooding.
August 2000	Heavy Rain	Sedona	-	no account filed
August 2000	Flood	Sedona	-	no account filed
June 1996	Waterspout	Sedona	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Coconino County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

4 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Sedona Ranger Station	2.3 miles	2008
Hart Store	2.3 miles	2007
Jordan Ranch	3.3 miles	2004
W. W. Midgley Bridge	4.1 miles	1989

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 10000947 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Coconino County	All 140 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.