Christ Episcopal Church, or simply Christ Church, is an historic church building located in

Burlington, Iowa Burlington is a city in, and the county seat of, Des Moines County, Iowa, United States. The population was 23,982 in the 2020 census, a decline from the 26,839 population in 2000. Burlington is the center of a micropolitan area, which includes ...

, United States. It is a part of the

Episcopal Diocese of Iowa The Episcopal Diocese of Iowa is the diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America which covers all of Iowa. It is in Province VI. Its offices are in Des Moines, and it has two cathedrals: the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in ...

, and is a

contributing property In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distri ...

in the Heritage Hill Historic District listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

History

After the opening of what is now eastern Iowa to American settlement in 1832, the town of Flint Hills was established the following year along the shores of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

. The name "Shoquoquon", or Flint Hills, had been given to the area by the Sauk and

Meskwaki The Meskwaki (sometimes spelled Mesquaki), also known by the European exonyms Fox Indians or the Fox, are a Native American people. They have been closely linked to the Sauk people of the same language family. In the Meskwaki language, the ...

tribes. Three years after the town was founded, the Right Rev.

Jackson Kemper Jackson Kemper (December 24, 1789 – May 24, 1870) in 1835 became the first missionary bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Especially known for his work with Native American peoples, he also founded parishes in wha ...

, Missionary Bishop of the Northwest, met an attorney named

David Rorer David Rorer (May 12, 1806 – July 7, 1884) was a lawyer, judge, sometime politician, author and anti-slavery advocate from Burlington, Iowa, who played a prominent role in the early history of Burlington and in Iowa legal history, and is credited ...

, on the steamboat ''Olive Branch''. Rorer was on his way to set up a practice in the young town and he convinced the bishop to establish a mission there. The town's name had been changed to Burlington in 1838 and the bishop established a mission of the Episcopal Church the same year. The Rev. John Bachelder from

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...

volunteered to serve the station and on March 15, 1839, he held the first service in Old Zion Church, Burlington's only religious building at that time. The mission was organized into a parish the following year. The Methodists continued to allow the Episcopalians to use Old Zion for their services in the parish's early years. The

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...

acquired the property at Fifth and High Streets in 1849 and built a church. The same year it adopted the name Christ Church. As the congregation continued to grow the vestry looked to buy a different property to build a new church. After several years and some conflict over a new site, they decided to tear down the old church in 1884 and build a new one at the same location. The present church was completed the following year and consecrated by the Right Rev.

William Stevens Perry William Stevens Perry (January 22, 1832 – May 13, 1898) was a 19th-century bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America and an educator. He served as the second bishop of the Diocese of Iowa from 1876 to 1898. Bio ...

, Bishop of Iowa, on May 16, 1886. The church was destroyed by a fire in 1973. The stone walls were all that were left standing. The

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

carillon A carillon ( , ) is a pitched percussion instrument that is played with a keyboard and consists of at least 23 cast-bronze bells. The bells are hung in fixed suspension and tuned in chromatic order so that they can be sounded harmoniou ...

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks ...

, and the church's records were all destroyed. Christ Church also lost its priceless collection of

stained glass windows Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

with the exception of the resurrection window that was located above the

Altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, churches, and other places of worship. They are used particularly in paga ...

. Sunday services were held at First Presbyterian Church while the church building was rebuilt using its original stone walls.

Architecture

Christ Church was designed by Burlington

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Charles A. Dunham in the

Romanesque Revival Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...

style. It was constructed by a Mr. Phelps and the stonework was done by a Mr. Smith. The interior walls were decorated by Burlington artist W.H. Johnson, who was also responsible for decorating First Baptist Church. The east wall featured a large stained glass window from

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. The side windows were designed and made by the church's rector, the Rev. Dr. Johnson. The exterior of the church is composed of local

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

. It is laid in tandem courses of

rubble masonry Rubble stone is rough, uneven building stone not laid in regular courses. It may fill the core of a wall which is faced with unit masonry such as brick or ashlar. Analogously, some medieval cathedral walls are outer shells of ashlar with an inn ...

. The structure also features a unique round tower that terminates in a square belfry, and it is capped with a high pitched

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

d roof. The parish house was built in 1901 and it reflected the church in its style and composition. With the exception of a

dormer A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the usable space ...

on the north side, the church building's exterior was completely restored after the 1973 fire. Prominent

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (s ...

es were added to the side walls to stabilize the weight of the roof. The congregation obtained an impressive stained glass window from St Philip’s Church in

Blackburn Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the Ribble Valley, east of Preston and north-n ...

, England upon its demolition, using the Redundant Churches Program. The program encourages the adaptive use or preservation of unused church properties.

References

External links

Christ Church Parish Website
{{Episcopal Diocese of Iowa Religious organizations established in 1838 Churches completed in 1885 19th-century Episcopal church buildings Episcopal church buildings in Iowa National Register of Historic Places in Des Moines County, Iowa Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa Romanesque Revival church buildings in Iowa Churches in Burlington, Iowa 1838 establishments in Iowa Territory Historic district contributing properties in Iowa