1857, Pius IX suppressed the Diocese of Quincy and erected the new Diocese of Alton in Alton Illinois. He appointed Henry Juncker as the first bishop of Alton. At the time of Juncker's arrival, the diocese contained 58 churches, 30 mission stations, 18 priests, and 50,000 Catholics. Needing more priests, he traveled to Europe in 1857 to recruit them from France, Germany, Ireland and Italy for his diocese. Juncker completed the first cathedral in the diocese in 1859, and founded two men's colleges, six girls' academies, a seminary, two hospitals, and one orphanage. During one stay in Randolph County, a delegation from Red Bud, Illinois, asked Juncker to visit them. The townspeople said they had never seen a priest there. During his visit to Red Bud, Juncker heard confession from 1,000 Catholics and received a donation of land from a Protestant businessman for a new church. When the American Civil War started in 1861, Juncker asked his parishioners to pray for peace. When the Union Army opened a medical camp for wounded soldiers in Cairo, Illinois, he sent priests and nuns there to provide support. Juncker died in 1868. By the time of his death, the Diocese of Alton had 125 churches, over 100 priests, and 80,000 Catholics. Juncker died in 1868. Pius IX appointed Peter Baltes of the Diocese of Chicago as the second bishop of Alton in 1869. Baltes quickly instituted a constitution that outline practices with all the parishes. Baltes issued a pastoral letter in 1879 that banned Catholics in his diocese from reading newspapers or journals that criticized the Catholic Church. He banned contemporary music from church services, replacing it with the Gregorian chant and Cecilian music. By the end of his tenure, the diocese included 109,000 Catholics, 177 priests, 126 parishes and 77 missions, 13 hospitals, three orphanages, two homes for the elderly, two men's colleges, a boys' high school, nine girls' academies, and 102 parochial schools with 11,000 students.In January 1884, 27 nuns died in a fire at the Convent of the Sisters of Notre Dame in Belleville. Baltes attended the funeral mass there, but was too sick to celebrate it. After Baltes died in 1886, Pope Leo XIII appointed James Ryan from the Diocese of Peoria as the third bishop of Alton. During his 35-year-long tenure, Ryan established 40 new churches and six hospitals, and increased the number of Catholics from 70,000 to