Most Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church
1050 Porter Street at the northeast corner of Porter and Sixth in Corktown
near
Tiger Stadium and just southwest of downtown
Completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 and the use of steam vessels on Lake Erie facilitated the migration of European immigrants to Detroit. Irish and Germans began to arrive in the early 1830s. The Catholic diocese of Detroit was established in 1833 as an offshoot of the Cincinnati diocese. At this time, an Irish parish was organized by a German priest, Father Martin Kundig, who was a hero in the 1834 Detroit cholera epidemic since he and the physician, Dr. Douglas Houghton, led relief efforts. The Irish parish was named Most Holy Trinity. They purchased a Protestant church located on the north side of Cadillac square and worshiped there for some years, but in 1849, the frame building was moved to the corner of Porter and Sixth since large numbers of Irish immigrants were settling in Corktown—the oldest ethnic neighborhood in Detroit.
In 1855, work was begun on this austere but impressive Gothic Revival church that still serves the parish. It was designed by an Irish-born architect from New York, Patrick Keeley, who used orange brick with limestone trim. The church was completed in 1866. Next to it stands the Romanesque red brick rectory in the architectural style of Henry Hobson Richardson. This parish continues in operation. A walk through the surrounding neighborhood will show you typical workingmen's homes or cottages built in the post-Civil War 19th century. The revitalization of Corktown illustrates one type of urban renewal.
Architect: Patrick Keeley
Builder: Mason and Rice
Michigan Historical Register: Listed October 27, 1984
Return to Religious Structures