Church of the Assumption (Saint Paul, Minnesota)

The Church of the Assumption Catholic Church was dedicated in 1874 and is the oldest existing church in Saint Paul. It is located at 51 West Seventh Street, in downtown Saint Paul. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The parish was founded in 1856 by Bishop Joseph Crétin. At that time, immigrants from Germany were arriving, and the single Catholic parish in St. Paul mainly served French and Irish settlers, with services in Latin and sermons in their own languages. The first building was a plain stone structure with a wooden steeple on West Ninth Street. The founding pastor was Father George Keller. After Fr. Keller was transferred to Faribault, Minnesota in 1858, staffing of the parish was met by priests and brothers from St. John's Abbey (Order of St. Benedict) in Collegeville, Minnesota. By 1869 the parish had outgrown the small chapel and a new building was urgently needed. The church's construction was ordered by then-Archbishop John Ireland, who wanted the city's growing Catholic German immigrant population to have a parish of their own. It was built in a plain Romanesque style of Lake Superior limestone by German Catholics, and is said to have been modeled after the Ludwigskirche in Munich. The architect, Joseph Reidel, was a court architect for the Wittelsbach family in Bavaria, Germany. It was built, according to the plans of the Ba

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