We’ll dive into our tour of Chicago, which hasn’t seen a post since January of 2015, by first looking at Holy Name Roman Catholic Cathedral and several other noteworthy churches. I visited six cathedrals on this most recent trip, three archdioceses, three dioceses, and was able to view the interior of three. The original Holy…
Tag: Gothic Revival
Churches Around the Courthouse Square, Decorah, Iowa
The ensemble of buildings around the Winneshiek Courthouse in Decorah is extraordinary in that churches fill a full two dies of the square, and the remaining two are partially filled with civic buildings. Starting on the west side and working in a counter-clockwise direction, we see St Benedict’s Roman Catholic Church. As is common with…
Various Small Towns, Northeastern Iowa
Heading north of West Union, Iowa, there are a series of small towns with surprising large churches. It’s a testament to just how many more people used to live in the countryside, when agriculture was so much more labor intensive. Eldorado is first up, with the soaring St. Peter Lutheran Church, complete with an interesting…
St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church, Independence, Iowa
I visited St. John the Evangelist of Independence, Iowa way back in 2011, and then didn’t even get around to posting the photographs until 2018 (third and fourth pictures down). Interestingly, the transepts have double lancet windows, as opposed to a rose window. The front façade is even more impressive when it’s not cloudy, like…
JeffVanderLou and St. Louis Place, Early Summer 2023
Heading east of St. Louis Avenue, I looked at the north side of that thoroughfare, having looked at the south of the street in two parts, here and here back in July of 2022. There is still a large part of JeffVanderLou west of North Grand Boulevard, even if most of the huge neighborhood is…
Hamilton Heights, Early Summer 2023
We dive into the Hamilton Heights neighborhood at the corner of Hamilton and Minerva avenues, where on the northwestern corner “New” St. Augustine’s stands. I next headed east on Minerva down the hill, where there is that extraordinary row of four-family apartment buildings. I’ve documented them before in January of 2015, September of 2019 and…
Former Jubilee College
I’m always fascinated by the big plans people had in the early half of the Nineteenth Century when the Midwest was opened up to settlement. The former Jubilee College, founded by Episcopal minister Philander Chase in 1839 northwest of Peoria, was to operate as a seminary for priests serving the surrounding states. Only a small…
Around Downtown, Galesburg, Illinois
Whiting Hall the Italianate style building above and below, was originally part of Knox College and functioned as a women’s seminary. The central core is from 1854-7, with the east wing added in 1885 and the west wing added in 1895, when it received its current name. It is now senior housing. The Knox County…
Fire at the Former St. Liborius, SK8 Liborius
The unthinkable happened late on the night of June 28. The former St. Liborius Roman Catholic Church, which had been closed in 1992 by the Archdiocese. It became SK8 Liborius approximately ten years ago. The people behind SK8 Liborius had been working tirelessly over that time to fix up the former church, and I had…
Fire, Soulard Church
Despite having driven by this church on the very edge of Soulard well over a thousand times, I came to the realization that I had never photographed it before the fire that struck it one night recently. Apparently painting supplies spontaneously combusted, which is completely possible if they are not allowed to dry properly; the…