Property for a Catholic church in Sanford was purchased on February 27, 1895, on Smith Road. The main body of St. Agnes Catholic Church was finished in 1897, and the first Mass was celebrated in October that year. A steeple was added in 1907. The church stood on this site next to the Sanford School from 1897 until the early 1960s, and it was there before the schoolhouse was built in 1910. The church was enlarged in the fall and winter of 1916 by additions to the sanctuary and a sacristy, and the interior was remodeled in 1917. A new Our Lady of Grace Parish (St. Agnes) building on West River Road was built in 1959, and the earlier church building on this site was torn down in the 1960s. The site is now approximately where the Founders Day merry-go-round stands in front of the Olson Store.