CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH
"Father J. McEvoy, one of Iowa's first Irish missionary priests, elaborated a scheme to Bishop Loras whereby he should be sent to California via the Panama Isthmus or Mexico and while there he proposed to collect enough gold from among the miners of that great gold rush to pay for St. Patrick's Church. The Bishop did not approve Father McEvoy's plan and the good priest remained in Dubuque." CENTENIAL HISTORY OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF DUBUQUE, 1938, 1853