Fairbanks, Alaska Historic Fairbanks - Immaculate Conception Church - Immaculate Conception Church listed on the Register of Historical Sites, April 3, 1976. Many gold prospectors were Catholic. The “little church” was built by the Father Francis Monroe, S.J., in 1904 gathering funds for the new church by begging from gold camp to gold camp . Its first location was at Dunkel Street near Front Street, situated across the Chena River from its present site and some four hundred feet upstream.