Old Cathedral traces heritage to founding of St. Louis

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Writing in "The Story of the Old Cathedral," the late Msgr. Elmer H. Behrmann compared it to the unfolding of a human life cycle, starting with the painful struggles of pioneer birth and infancy, advancing through the adventures of a robust romantic adolescence, continuing to a fruitful leadership and achievement of maturing years before gradually levelling off and continuing to fill needs in older age.

The Basilica of St. Louis King of France — more commonly known as the Old Cathedral — has advanced from its first "shed-like" structure to its present stone edifice at 209 Walnut St. Today it is not only a welcoming place for tourists who come Downtown and to the riverfront and to Downtown workers, but it also is an active parish with several organizations and varied liturgical and spiritual offerings.

The Old Cathedral — the oldest building in St. Louis and the only one that can be traced directly to the founding of St. Louis — is along the riverfront with the building itself outside the boundary of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (Arch grounds) but its parking lot belonging to the National Park Service, provided to the archdiocese under an agreement dating to 1961.

Most recently a new planning process for guiding long-term management of the Arch grounds left the cathedral and its lot unchanged as other structural changes elsewhere have been proposed for the riverfront property.

When Pierre Laclede and his first lieutenant Auguste Chouteau founded the City of St. Louis in 1764, Laclede dedicated the square just west of where he built his home to church and graveyard purposes. Historical accounts note that Jesuit Father Sebastian Meurin baptized Marie Deschamps in a tent there in 1766. The first Catholic church in St. Louis built on this site was a small log house built in 1770. St. Louis IX, King of France, is the patron saint of the city and of the church. In 1776, the mission of St. Louis became a canonical parish and the second log cabin church was built. Its bell, the gift of Lt. Gov. Don Piernas and enriched by 200 Spanish silver dollars in its casting, can be seen today in the Old Cathedral Museum.

In 1826 St. Louis became a diocese, and the following year Bishop Joseph Rosati became the first bishop of the Diocese of St. Louis. The cornerstone of the present cathedral building was laid in 1831 and the dedication of the building, constructed at a cost of $63,360, took place in 1834. This was the first cathedral west of the Mississippi, and until 1845 it was the only parish church in the city of St. Louis, which had a population of 30,000, about half of them Catholics. It is truly the "mother church" of the City of St. Louis.

More than 40 dioceses have been formed as the Catholic Church spread westward from the Old Cathedral.

The first St. Vincent de Paul Society conference in America was founded in 1845 at this cathedral. A bronze plaque on the facade of this historic church commemorates the founding. The Old Cathedral St. Vincent de Paul Society Conference continues to meet on a regular basis and helps the poor and homeless people in the neighborhood. Society members were tested mightily during the 1849 cholera epidemic in which 3,268 parishioners succumbed and were buried in the parish cemetery that year because of the disease. Earlier that year, the Old Cathedral was one of the few buildings near the river to survive a fire that destroyed some 15 blocks of property.

The building was the cathedral of the Archdiocese of St. Louis until 1914, when the new cathedral (now the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis) on Lindell Boulevard in the western part of the city was dedicated. Years earlier the growth of the commercial sector had overtaken the residential areas of the Old Cathedral Parish.

In 1961, Pope John XXIII signed a decree naming the former cathedral of St. Louis a basilica, recognizing it as "a treasure of the universal Church."

By 1933, some 40 blocks of the Downtown riverfront surrounding the Old Cathedral had fallen into decay. Luther Ely Smith, a St. Louisan, spelled out a plan for developing a memorial on the riverfront to Mayor Bernard F. Dickmann, who had been married in the Old Cathedral. On Dec. 15, 1933, Mayor Dickmann called a meeting of St. Louis civic leaders in the Jefferson Hotel. From this meeting was born the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial which surrounds the Old Cathedral.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the Interior Department to acquire the tract of the original city settlement between Poplar Street and the Eads Bridge west to Third Street. The only exception, the only building to be saved, was the historic Old Cathedral, standing where it has always stood. The memorial commemorates Thomas Jefferson, under whose presidency Louisiana was purchased, and the pioneers who broke open the American West.

The Basilica of St. Louis King of France stands in the center of the memorial as a reminder of the expansion of faith throughout the West.

Much of the background material for this article is from a history of the Old Cathedral provided by the parish.