Jasper Chapel
Jasper Chapel is the only holy ground in Purgatory Gulch. It is located on the eastern end of town, atop a slight hill, so that it has a less obstructed view of the horizon.
For most visitors it is the first sight on approach to the town.
In shape it is mostly a long north-south narrow rectangle, with a square tower above each of the north and south ends.
To its west, the town of Purgatory Gulch unfolds, and beyond that is the heart of Oatman Canyon.
To its east, rolling grassland washes away the horizon.
North and south of the church is scrubland that eventually becomes either farmland or the Longgrass Plains.
Architecture
The building is made almost entirely of glossy adobe, each brick carefully mixed to look like the silver-streaked brown and gold gemstone known as "desert sun jasper". Darker bricks are near the ground, lighter bricks rise up forty feet to the top of the bell towers at the narrow northern and southern sides, or twenty feet to the flat adobe roof. It has the requisite stained glass windows at the precise places to catch the full rays of the sun on holy days. The flat roof has twin rows down its center of extra thick glass skylights, stained in abstract geometric patterns, bubble-shaped to keep dust or rain from accumulating on them.
The double doors of the chapel's main entrance, at the base of the south bell tower, are inset far enough into the bell tower to get some shelter from the weather.
Both of the front doors are made of cactus wood. The porous structure helps air flow through the main chamber of the chapel throughout the summer heat.
The single door in the northern bell tower is a different, slightly less porous cactus wood, with a waterproofed tapestry attached to its inner face to discourage bee transit from the small garden into the building.
The back quarter of the building, including the northern bell tower, is a studio apartment and a workshop for the resident pastor. Father Cirino De Mario, generally addressed as "Padre Cirino", makes the candles and incense for his own services, plus more mundane candles for everyday use. Anyone attempting to enter the apartment through the north door will have to deal with territorial bees.
The Chapel has a well in the resident pastor's workshop. Padre Cirino has voiced less than charitable thoughts about whoever designed the original layout of the chapel to prevent public access to the well. He will trade one jugful of water per day to any person requesting some, in trade for twenty minutes of washing the windows or weeding the garden or sweeping the floor.
Type
Temple / Church
Parent Location
Owner
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