This Historic Church was Gutted by Fire on March 18th, 2024

St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church, St. Louis Missouri

Date added: March 22, 2024 Categories: Missouri Church Gothic Revival

Church, north and east elevations (1986)

Constructed in 1896 for St. Augustine's Roman Catholic parish, the church is a good representative example of German Catholic architecture in St. Louis, expressing ethnic identity in the hall church plan. Designed by German-trained St. Louis architect Louis Wessbecher, the Gothic Revival building features fine brick masonry trimmed with stone and stained glass windows. The rectory, built in 1928 in Tudor Gothic style, was designed to relate harmoniously to the church.

St. Augustine's Church (later Christ Baptist) was founded in 1874 as a national parish exclusively for the use of German Catholic immigrants. The location of the parish on Hebert and Lismore Streets in north St. Louis was an indicator of the swelling tide of German immigration to St. Louis and the expansion of German settlement into subdivisions west of the riverfront Wards. Within five years after the establishment of St. Augustine's (the sixth German Parish to be located on the north side) fifteen or nearly one-third of the city's Catholic churches had been set apart for German Catholics who represented approximately half of St. Louis's total German-born population. By 1898, twenty-one German parishes were distributed almost evenly between the North and south sides of the city. Answering the urgent needs of St. Louis' growing foreign population for German priests and instruction in their native tongue, the foreign language parishes served important social and religious functions during the difficult years of transition from the Old World to the New. The liturgical art and architecture of these churches are among the city's most valuable records of its rich German heritage and cogent testimony of the close alliance of religion and nationality in the 19^th century.

The building history of St.Augustine's parish well illustrates the growth and progress of German Catholics in St. Louis. The parish's first church, completed in 1875, was a small, simple brick building (47 X 85 feet) which for twenty years served both as church and school for an expanding working-class German neighborhood. In 1895, when plans were approved for a larger church capable of seating one thousand, parish membership was reaching two thousand. While the construction of the new church was a prestigious symbol of German Catholic achievement, it also inspired civic pride, enhancing the city's north side with a monumental landmark. For the laying of the cornerstone on May 3^rd, 1896, ten thousand people gathered in procession to the church site and the event was covered in detail by both the English and German press. The ceremonies and festivities held for the dedication of the church on August 29^th, 1897 included a belated celebration honoring St. Augustine (patron saint of the parish) whose official feast day was observed on August 28^th, the day before. Perhaps the most renowned and influential theologian and philosopher of the early Church Fathers, St. Augustine is represented in stained glass in the Hebert Street church.

The design of St. Augustine's reveals cultural links to the fatherland expressing a distinct German Catholic ethnic identity. Described by contemporary 19th-century writers as built in the Gothic style of the 13^th century, St. Augustine's plan follows that of a hall church, a medieval plan used widely in Germany from the time of its appearance in St. Elizabeth's at Marburg, Germany in the 13^th century. Characteristic of the German hall plan is St. Augustine's lofty, unified, open interior space, created by the use of a short transept and a nave height which approximates that of the side aisles. The termination of the nave in a tri-part east end formed by a polygonal apse and two flanking chapels also follows medieval German models. The recurrent use of the hall plan (most often in Gothic-style brick buildings) in eleven of twenty-one German Catholic churches built between 1875 and 1910 is one of the clearest architectural expressions of German ethnic consciousness remaining in the city. A comparison of St. Augustine's with two other 1890s ethnic churches designed by Louis Wessbecher (1857-1940), the German-born and trained architect of the Hebert Street church, succinctly illustrates the local practice of expressing ethnic/religious distinctions through church plan: Polish Catholic St. Stanislaus Kostka features a domical central plan; Bethlehem Lutheran (German), in the Hyde Park District, employs an unaisled auditorium plan. St. Augustine's along with other German churches also markedly departed from church designs for Irish Catholics (the city's second-largest ethnic group) which were modeled after English Gothic churches and were usually designed by architects of English or Irish descent.

The stained glass windows installed in the church are documented as the work of St. Louis' foremost designer of church glass, the Emil Frei Art Glass Company. Born in Germany, Frei (1869-1942) was trained as an artist in the Munich Academy of Arts. Around the turn of the century, Frei established a stained glass studio in St. Louis specializing in figural art glass which was installed in numerous local churches and in more than 200 churches across the country. In addition to St. Augustine's windows, Frei received commissions for at least eight other German Catholic churches including his own parish,

St. Anthony's. Only three of the seven figural art glass windows in St. Augustine's are unboarded and visible. A large impressive window installed in the south transept depicts the Adoration of the Magi. On the south side of the apse, another window illustrates a well-known legend from the life of St. Augustine referring to the Bishop-Saint's profound studies on the nature of the Trinity. Meditating on the Trinity, St. Augustine is shown walking along the seashore where he encountered a child with shell in hand, attempting to fill a hole in the sand with the ocean. When the Saint remarked on the futility of the child's effort, the youngster replied, "No more so than for a human intelligence to fathom the mystery you are meditating."

The church survives with original finely crafted oak pews and a communion rail with Gothic detailing. Installed in the vestibule is the original ceramic tile floor in grey, blue, and buff colors.

Shortly after the church was completed, a new parochial residence was built on the south side of the church. In 1928, however, another large rectory replaced the earlier house which may have been damaged by the tornado of 1927. The new priests' house was constructed by contractor W. Diemert & Son; plans were drawn up by Henry P. Hess, a prominent St. Louis architect of Catholic institutional buildings. The buff brick Tudor Gothic house was designed to harmonize with the colors, materials and forms of the church. Inside, original dark oak millwork and built-in bookcases further distinguish the house.

St. Augustine's remained a strong and vital parish well into the mid-20^th century when the city's north side began its dramatic decline, eventually forcing the church to be closed. More fortunate than numerous Northside churches that have been demolished over the years, St. Augustine's church was purchased in 1982 by Christ Baptist Church.

The church has been bought several times and the Last Awakening Outreach Center used both the church and rectory until 2014, according to The Missouri Alliance for Historic Preservation.

The church sat vacant until 2020 when a non-profit bought it intending to help restore it.

The building was in peril due to theft, vandalism and decay, according to the historic preservation group. All of the building's original copper had been stolen and there were holes in the roof.

The church caught on fire on March 18^th, 2024, and caused heavy damage.

Fire damages historic north St. Louis church

Historic north St. Louis church to be demolished after third fire in two years

Building Description

Christ Baptist Church (originally St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church) is an 1896 Gothic Revival buff brick church adjoining a 1928 Tudor Gothic brick rectory. The buildings are located on the corner of Hebert and Lismore Streets on St. Louis' north side.

The church's buff brick walls rise from a limestone foundation. The building measures approximately 155 long, 64 feet wide at the nave, with a transept 88 feet wide. Facing west, the primary facade of the church features a large stained glass rose window (partially boarded) above a central portal; the entrance is framed by stone-trimmed pinnacled buttresses, stone colonnettes in the jambs, and a wood traceried tympanum. Two towers flank the facade. The larger north tower is articulated with a cylindrical turret pierced with irregular fenestration on the west (primary) elevation and a stone-trimmed, gabled entrance on the north (side) elevation. Ornamental brick corbeling and/or blind arcading enrich the towers, apse, and the gables of the nave and transept. Buttresses with stone setbacks are employed on all elevations. The nave and transept are gable-roofed. A polygonal apse pierced with pointed arch windows terminates the east end of the church. The only notable alteration to the exterior has been the reconstruction of the spires on the two facade towers, probably as the result of damage by the 1927 tornado. A comparison of photos reveals that alterations to the south tower consisted only of shortening the spire; alterations to the north tower involved the removal of small gables above the louvered, pointed arch windows and reconstruction of the spire with a flared base. (An undated elevation drawing of the new spires exists from the firm that designed the church, Wessbecher & Hillebrand.)

The interior features a two-bay, pointed arch nave arcade and one bay transept from which spring plaster rib vaulting. A two-level choir gallery exists at the west end of the church. The nave, transept, and apse are installed with traceried stained glass windows; the five windows in the apse and two in the transept are narrative figural scenes while the nave windows display non-figural ornamental. designs. Several of the windows are now boarded. Original wood pews and a Gothic detailed communion rail are intact as is a ceramic tile floor in the vestibule.

The gabled roof rectory was constructed in 1928 of buff/yellow brick above a limestone foundation. The north side of the house is joined to the church by a passageway. The four-bay primary facade features a projecting brick porch pierced by open stone arches and trimmed. with a crenellated parapet; rectangular double-hung windows have stone surrounds. North and south bays of the front facade project forward slightly and are accented with stone-trimmed gables echoing gables on the church. The north and south (side) elevations are articulated with an irregular fenestration pattern; windows are double-hung with soldier course brick lintels and stone sills. The rear (east) elevation features a projecting two-story brick porch with open segmental arches; fenestration is irregular with double-hung windows headed with soldier course brick lintels and employing stone sills. The exterior of the rectory appears to be unaltered. The interior survives with original dark oak millwork and built-in bookcases.