The Sacred Heart parish was fount July 28, 1898, by the Reverend John F. Lockney. It includes all the English speaking Catholics between Twenty-third Street, both sides, to Forty-sixth Street. Father Lockney built a temporary church on Twenty-eighth Street and used it two years. He moved the parochial residence twenty feet east in order to have room to built the new church. The corner-stone of the new church was laid in May, 1901, and the first mass in the new church was Christmas, 1902. The new church cost $36,000. Father Lockney bought the property for $5,500. The magnificent church, rectory and grounds are worth today $60,000. The pastor and people have worked very zealously together and the parish in is a very flourishing condition. Father Lockney still presides over the destinies of the parish and is the longest resident Catholic pastor in Rock Island.
Source: Historic Rock Island County, pub. Kramer & Company, Rock Island, Illinois, 1908