Saints Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church Complex

Saints Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church Complex is located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991 for its architectural significance. Saints Peter and Paul parish was created in 1889, a response to the upper east side's rapidly growing German immigrant population during the 1880s and 90s, at the direction of Milwaukee's vicar general, the Right Reverend Leonard Batz. The parish began with forty-three families, and they initially worshiped in a temporary chapel on the corner of East Bradford and North Cramer Streets, while the permanent church was being built nearby. The church building was designed by Henry Messmer of Milwaukee in Romanesque Revival style, with rusticated limestone foundations supporting cream brick walls. The general form is a large gable roof with a square centered tower at the front (pictured). High in the tower is a rose window, above that a belfry clad in ornamental sheet metal, and then a slate-roofed spire topped with a Latin cross. Across the front is a brick narthex added in 1939. The church's sides feature round-arched stained-glass windows. At the back is a semi-octagonal apse. The nave inside is little changed since the 1800s, with the original oak pews, a plaster barrel vault ceiling, and the original Baroque-styled carved wood reredos. The cornerstone was laid in 1890 and the church w

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