The churches as buildings: a survey of the unlisted sacred fabric

1836–1979 · THE CONGREGATIONS' RECORD IS THE RELIGION LEG'S

The division: None of Mishawaka's churches stands on the National Register in its own right — the parish square is listed as a square — but the city's church buildings are among its oldest and largest fabric, and this article carries them at building size: dates, sites, materials, architects where the record names them. Every congregation named here stands whole in the religion record of this history; what follows is only the buildings.

The first generation: The city's first church building was a Methodist society's, raised in the fall of 1836 — a year before the town's plats were united. The First Presbyterian congregation, organized in 1834, built in 1837 on Center Court north of Front Street and again in 1846 at the southeast corner of Mill Street and Lincoln Way West; the 1846 church burned in the Great Fire of 5 September 1872. The present First Presbyterian church, at 401 Lincolnway East, was dedicated on 30 March 1911. St. Paul's Episcopal parish built its first church at First and Spring Streets in 1843 — a Greek Revival frame church, the "Church on the Hill," consecrated in 1845, carrying the first belfry bell in Mishawaka, cast in 1836. When the parish moved, the old church was moved with the times rather than demolished: sold in 1905, it was removed to South Union Street and remodeled into a residence — the third Mishawaka building in this chapter, after the Ellis-Schindler House and the WPA caretaker's house, to survive by being moved. St. Joseph's Catholic parish built its frame church, lost it to fire in 1861, built in brick the same year, and built the present Gothic church in 1893; the parish square's entry above carries it whole. St. Peter's Lutheran built at Church and Front Streets, dedicated 16 November 1862; at Church and Fourth, dedicated 23 November 1902; and at 437 East Dragoon Trail, dedicated 11 November 1979, the old church deconsecrated that July. The German Evangelical congregation — St. Andrew's today — built in brick in 1864, in the 100 block of West Third Street, used it until December 1950, and dedicated the present building, at 320 East Fourth Street, on 15 April 1951.

The second generation: The First Christian Church built its Gothic church at Lincoln Way West and Spring, dedicated 23 February 1896. First English Lutheran dedicated its church at Seventh and Main on 19 April 1903, and left it for 16495 Ireland Road in 1961, the new building occupied 8 May of that year. The Free Methodist church at 601 East Grove Street, of 1902, carries the most Mishawaka sentence in this chapter's record: it was built of cement blocks cast from the gravel of its own basement excavation. St. Bavo's Belgian parish laid the cornerstone of its brick church at Seventh and West Streets on 8 May 1904 and dedicated it on 1 January 1905, at a cost of $13,081 — the parish history's figures, printed as it gives them. St. Paul's built its present church at 616 East Lincolnway on a documented contract: designed by Schneider & Austin of South Bend, built by Hess & Hiner of Mishawaka for $15,000, its cornerstone laid 17 July 1906 and the church opened at Easter 1907; the diocese's archives also preserve the period's great unbuilt Mishawaka design, the bishop's scheme for a Gothic Revival cathedral by Ralph Adams Cram at Cedar and Lincolnway — a paper building, carried in the architects' article below. The Methodists replaced their line of earlier buildings with the present First United Methodist church at 201 East Third Street, a Bedford-stone Gothic church dedicated 16 June 1912. St. Monica's, the north-side parish, completed its present church at Mishawaka Avenue and Ann Street on 2 October 1927. St. Michael the Archangel's Ukrainian Greek Catholic parish, founded in 1916, keeps its church at 712 East Lawrence Street; the building's construction date is not in the record reached, and is named as a gap in this section's note. Queen of Peace dedicated its present church in 1970.

The motherhouse: The largest religious complex in the city's record stands at its southern edge, and its scale is geographical: in June 1943 the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration bought the Carlisle estate on Dragoon Trail — four hundred acres and a twenty-five-room manor — for their motherhouse, the house the religion record owns whole. The built course on the ground: a Lourdes grotto and cemetery in 1944, a temporary chapel's cornerstone that April, and the new convent built in 1949–50; the complex stands at 1515 West Dragoon Trail, behind its gates, the perpetual adoration begun there at Easter 1943 continuing without interruption into the present of this record. Across the road's corridor stands the diocesan high school the sisters staffed, Marian High School, its cornerstone blessed on 9 August 1964 — carried at anchor size here, and whole in the schools and religion records. The church buildings of Mishawaka, taken as fabric, divide by material and century as the city itself does: frame and brick on the two banks' first streets, Bedford stone and Gothic in the streetcar years, brick parishes planted by each immigrant generation in its own neighborhood, and a walled motherhouse on a farm estate at the city's edge.

Sources:

1. The religion record of this history — every building date, site and dedication stated here stands there with its congregation: the First Presbyterian course of 1837, 1846, 1872 and 1911; the Methodist first building of 1836 and the Bedford-stone church of 1912; St. Peter's three dedications; St. Andrew's of 1864 and 1951; First Christian, 1896; First English Lutheran, 1903 and 1961; the Free Methodist gravel blocks; St. Monica, 1927; Queen of Peace, 1970; St. Michael's founding and address; the Dragoon Trail estate purchase, grotto, chapel and convent of 1949–50; Marian's cornerstone.
2. Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana archives, St. Paul's parish history — the Church on the Hill of 1843, its 1836 bell, its 1905 removal to South Union Street, and the present church's architects, builders, cost and cornerstone of 1906–07; the unbuilt Cram cathedral scheme.
3. The St. Bavo parish history (Alerding diocesan history and the parish's own account) — the cornerstone of 8 May 1904, the dedication of 1 January 1905 and the $13,081 cost.