The Spaniards and the inhabitants as well, valued the spring so much that they erected the Catholic Church, one of the remaining vestiges of the Spanish Rule in the country.

Up to latter part of the 16th century, 1795, Sta. Catalina was a part of Vigan, then called Ciudad Fernandina, founded by Juan Salcedo, the Grandson of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi. The other towns were part of Vigan were San Vicente and Caoayan. These informations were gathered from the archives at the Archbishop’s Palace at Vigan. The Holy Cross, planted in barangay Cabittaogan attests that Sta. Catalina was the mooring place for boats (rafts), thus, a very impertinent of Vigan. But it was only in 1795 that the late Bishop Juan Ruiz made Sta. Catalina a Parish. There was no assigned Parish Priest then, so the clergy of Vigan did the administration. Seeing that the Parish could well stand on its own, the next Bishop, Most Rev. Pedro Blacquier, appointed the Parish Priest in 1800, in the person of Rev. Fr. Manuel de los Reyes. At the start there were only 3,000 inhabitants. By nature a devoted community, these people were fond of remembering their dead. So in 1837, during the incumbency of Rev. Vicente Villanueva, the “Gofradiade las Almas Benditas del Purgatorio” was establish. The people have, since then, always devoted to the God. Although there was no written record as to the exact founding of Sta. Catalina, it can be calculated from reports, verbal and written, that the town was founded sometime in the latter part of the 16th century.

Fr. Pedro Torrices started the new church in 1849-1855 and Fr. Luis Lagar finished it in 1875.

In 1905, another destructive flood, “Layos Nawnaw” motivated the people to transfer the poblacion to Pasungol in the southern part of the town in 1907.

Don Domingo Bueno y Ramirez, the Presidente Municipal, transferred the new government and the new poblacion was laid out. Circumferencial roads were constructed. An hermita, made of bamboo and cogon, was put up and a one-storey primary school building was laid out.

On December 19,1941, the Japanese soldiers landed in Santa. The people fled to the mountains where they suffered from privations, hunger and diseases. The Japanese soldiers held a garrison at the south of Quirino Bridge and massacred seventy (70) civilians in Barrio Rizal on January 26, 1954. These turn of events, no matter how depressing and destructive they were, brought back the residents together to restore the present site of the local government.