Madre De Dios Church um 1950
In the 1940s, Winslow was growing both geographically and in population. Because people were living farther and farther away from St. Joseph Church and had to cross a wide expanse of railroad tracks to go to church there, priests from St. Joseph began saying Mass in 1948 at Cooperstown in the Penitente Morada chapel. It was then decided to build a church on the south side of town. With generous donations, construction began on the church in 1949. On February 2, 1950 the new church was gutted by fire, but construction work began anew and in September 1950 the church was finally constructed, dedicated to Madre de Dios and later officially named as a parish in September, 1951. In 1952, an addition was built on the church to serve as a rectory. In 1958, work on a parish hall was begun and, upon completion, was dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi by Bishop Espelage in 1961. In 1962, a large shrine was built beside the church and dedicated to Our Blessed Mother.
According to local rumors, the Quonset Hut was shipped to Winslow in pieces that had to be lifted over the railroad tracks and then reassembled. One of the sections was nearly hit by a train. It was a near miss, but the locals laughed that if the train had hit it, it would have been the first time the train engineer had been in a church.