Polish families who first came to Texas in the 1850s and settled in Panna Maria later migrated to this area, where a group of Polish Catholics split from the primarily German Catholic Church in Meyersville and joined the Catholic Church in Yorktown. By 1867, 13 Polish households belonged to the Yorktown congregation, and Anton and Lucyia Koszielsky deeded land at this site to the church for a new facility that was dedicated to St. Mary. After that building burned in 1915, the parish hired architect F.B. Gaenslen to design a new church completed in 1916. Using the cross from the steeple of the former church, the new building came to be called Holy Cross. Construction was overseen by Falbo Contractors of San Antonio, with much of the labor supplied by parishioners. Gaenslen's simplified Romanesque design was executed in red brick with polychrome brick detailing on the tower, and its Romanesque features include the tower, semicircular arched windows, and corbelled parapet. Since 1916, Holy Cross Catholic Church has served Catholics in Yorktown and the surrounding area as an architectural landmark housing the parish's ministries of worship, education, and outreach.