Tourists and visitors who go to Detroit’s Greektown for the gambling casino or for the many restaurants and nightclubs, can readily take a moment to appreciate one of the city’s most appealing and original houses of worship.
After the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, Detroit’s population grew, and within a score of years, it was no longer a largely French-speaking village in the wilderness. By the 1830s, the German population increased so that St. Anne’s Church regularly scheduled Masses in German as well as in French. A dynamic German-born priest—Martin Kundig—arrived from Cincinnati in the 1830s, and similar to Father Richard, became very active in the city’s affairs. Father Kundig pretty much single handedly provided services for the poor of Detroit during its cholera decade—the 1830s. By the late 1830s, it became evident that a German-language parish should be established. The Beaubien family donated land at the corner of Monroe and St. Antoine for the city’s first German Catholic church. This parish was founded in 1835, but construction of a church awaited fundraising. In 1841, the cornerstone for the new church was laid, and two years later, it was completed. Father Martin Kundig played a role in founding St. Mary’s Parish, but became sick and moved to Milwaukee before the first St. Mary’s church was completed. A German-speaking Franciscan, Otto Skolla, who had been ministering to Michigan’s Indians, replaced him.
This parish grew and prospered as Germans found jobs in the city’s expanding industries and businesses. In the 1870s, the parish decided to build the elegant and massive church that you see pictured here. Peter Dederichs, born in Detroit in 1856 and educated in architecture in Germany, was selected to design the church, one that has been described as Pisan Romanesque or Venetian Renaissance in style. As Eric Hill and John Gallagher describe it in their AIADetroit guide to the city’s architecture, it is “an exuberant creation.” Dederichs designed this when he was in his early thirties. It is, I suspect, his greatest accomplishment, but he designed a variety of buildings in Detroit, including St. Bonaventure Monastery on Mount Elliott and St. Charles Borommeo Church on the East Side.
The prosperity of this parish by the time of the Civil War is evident in the large school built across the street from the church, but also the corner of Monroe and St. Antoine. This is the plainest of the three buildings in this complex, but is a large school that, presumably, trained thousands of students across the decades.
Th
e
rectory or parish house is another massive building, larger indeed, than
many hotels built at the time of its construction. Julian Hess
who designed
several famous but massive Detroit buildings in his era, including the Trumbull
Avenue Presbyterian Church and the Grand Army of the Republic
Building was
the architect for this structure.
St. Mary’s Parish played a role in establishing Catholic parishes for both blacks and Mexicans. The pastor of St. Mary’s in the early years of the Twentieth Century sought to convert blacks to Catholicism and was so successful that by 1914, the diocese purchased the former St. Mary’s Episcopal church at Beaubien and Eliot and established a St. Peter Claver parish for blacks—the first of about eight Catholic parishes in or near Detroit created for African-Americans. At this time, there were also a few Mexican immigrants living on the east side. By 1920, Spanish-language Masses were being said in St. Mary’s School, and by 1923, the diocese established a parish for Mexicans, Our Lady of Guadalupe at the corner of Roosevelt and Kirby.
Although its architecture is not as appealing, those who visit Greektown for gambling or entertainment also see Second Baptist Church at Monroe—the city’s oldest African-American church dating from 1836, just one year after the establishment of St. Mary’s parish.
Church
Architect: Peter Dederichs
Architectural style: Romanesque, perhaps Pisan Romanesque
Date of Completion: 1885
Parish house
Architect: Julian Hess
Architectural style: Romanesque
Date of Completion: 1876
School
Architect: Pius Daubner
Date of Completion: 1868
City of Detroit Designated Local District: Apparently not listed.
State of Michigan Registry of Historic Sites: P25232, Listed June 15, 1979
State of Michigan Historic Markers: Put in place: August 1, 1980. There are
at least two State of Michigan Historical Markers at this religious complex.
National Register of Historic Places: I am not certain.
Use in 2006: Church
Photograph: Ren Farley
Descriptions prepared: December, 2006
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