Why he matters
The oldest church in Scottsdale is made of dirt, straw and volunteer labor. Its windows are the one place where a single person’s craft shows. They were made by Bernabé Herrera, a tinsmith from the Mexican-American families who built the Old Adobe Mission, finished in 1933. The glass itself was salvage. Father James P. Davis got it from Bishop Daniel Gercke, who was renovating a church in Tucson, and Herrera turned discards into the windows of his own parish church. According to Salt River Stories, he arranged them to retell the Miracle of the Roses, the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Juan Diego that the parish would later stage every December.
He did the same kind of work for money. The City of Scottsdale’s historic context for the town’s arts-colony years credits “local Scottsdale tinsmith Barnebe Herrera” with the light fixtures and table ornaments of the Jokake Inn, part of the Southwestern look that made that resort famous, alongside wrought iron by George Cavalliere. The same architect, Robert T. Evans, designed both the Jokake and the mission. Herrera worked on both sides of that line, the resort the tourists paid for and the church the barrio built for itself.
He was also the parish’s teacher. The mission calls him Our Lady of Perpetual Help’s first catechist. The city’s historic register report says he was “later the parish catechism teacher,” and a Scottsdale Historical Society photograph shows him standing with a First Communion class.
Where to find his work today
The Old Adobe Mission, 3817 N. Brown Ave. in Old Town, is free and open most days from October through May. His windows are the reason to go on a morning when the sun is low.
The Miracle of the Roses, the December pageant now staged inside the mission, acts out the story his glass tells.
What we know, and what we don’t
Herrera’s record is short and scattered across four sources, and they don’t even spell his name the same way. This site and most recent writing use Bernabé. The Old Adobe Mission writes Bérnabe, the parish history Barnabe, and the city’s 2004 arts-colony context Barnebe. Salt River Stories and the 2001 register report use Bernabe without the accent. Anyone searching census or church records should try every version.
What the sources agree on: he was a tinsmith in Scottsdale, he made the mission’s stained glass, and he taught catechism. What they add, one source at a time: the Jokake fixtures (the city’s context), the salvaged Tucson glass (the parish and the mission), the 15 panes (the mission), the Miracle of the Roses theme (Salt River Stories), and the First Communion photograph (the Scottsdale Historical Society, via Salt River Stories).
What none of them gives us: when and where he was born, when he came to Scottsdale, whether he came north with the cotton-boom families of the late 1910s, who his family was, when he died, or whether he made glass for anyone else. Our page on 1931 lists “the Herreras” among the families who started the church fund. Whether that means his household, the record doesn’t say.
The sources also disagree on the glass. The parish history says Bishop Gercke was renovating “the Old Pueblo Church in Tucson.” The mission names St. Augustine’s Cathedral. We have not seen a diocesan record that settles it. The count is unsettled too. The mission says 15 panes. The city’s 2001 survey describes five window openings and found original glass in four, with the fifth, in the north wall of the bell tower, boarded over for an air-conditioning unit. The 2003 restoration repaired and reinstalled stained glass, so what you see now may not match the 2001 description.
The full story
The Catholic families of Scottsdale’s south side had been raising money for a church since the late 1920s. Treasurer Doña Dolores Rivera de Ochoa kept the fund, and Robert Evans supplied plans, equipment and tools. The families made roughly 14,000 fifty-pound adobe bricks by hand (the Corral family page tells that part). Building moved slowly through the Depression, and in 1932, under Father James P. Davis, construction began in earnest. Every family made and brought its own pew.
A church needs windows, and this congregation could not buy them. Father Davis went to the bishop. Gercke was renovating a church in Tucson, and the old glass came north to Scottsdale. Herrera, whose usual work was cutting, bending and soldering tin into lamps and ornaments, made the windows. Snips and solder are a glazier’s tools as much as a tinsmith’s. Salt River Stories calls the result “the finishing touch,” and says the windows “retold the Miracle of the Roses story, an inspiration for the church project.” In October 1933 the first Mass was said under them.
After the parish was established in 1949, the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill took on much of its religious teaching. Before them, by the mission’s account, the first catechist was Herrera. In the historical society’s photograph he stands in the third row with a First Communion class, the children he taught arranged in front of him.
The parish moved to Miller Road in 1956, and the adobe became a hall, then a rehearsal room. When the city surveyed the building in 2001, four of the five windows still held their original glass. The restoration that began in 2002 stabilized the bell tower and repaired and reinstalled the stained glass, and in 2003 Mass returned to the building. In 2018 the mission went onto the National Register of Historic Places, windows included.
Where the rest of the record lives
- The 1930 and 1940 federal censuses for the Scottsdale precinct, searched under every spelling, would give his age, birthplace, household and trade.
- The parish’s sacramental registers at Our Lady of Perpetual Help (480-947-4331) and the Diocese of Phoenix. He may appear as a sponsor at the baptisms and First Communions of the children he taught.
- The Scottsdale Historical Society, which holds the First Communion photograph and may have more.
- The Phoenician and Jokake Inn records, for whether any of his fixtures survived the resort.
- The families. Descendants of the barrio’s founding families, who met at the parish as recently as 2019, may know what no document records: where he lived, who his children were, and which pane was his favorite.