The St. Anthony of Padua Church is a historic Catholic church in

Hoven, South Dakota Hoven is a town in Potter County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 379 at the 2020 census. Hoven was laid out in 1883 and named after either Matt or Peter Hoven, who were the first settlers. Geography According to the United Sta ...

, within the

Diocese of Sioux Falls The Roman Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls ( la, Dioecesis Siouxormensis) is a Roman Catholic diocese in the U.S. state of South Dakota. It comprises that part of South Dakota east of the Missouri River. It is a suffragan see of the Archdiocese ...

. Nicknamed "the Cathedral of the Prairie" (though it has never technically been a cathedral), it is noted for its ornate Romanesque and Gothic Revival architecture, the cost and scale of which are unusual for a small rural town. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 as St. Bernard's Catholic Church.

History

The area, then part of Dakota Territory, was settled around 1883 by German immigrants, and the parish of St. Bernard was established to serve them. The first church, a wooden structure, was completed in 1888, and replaced by another in 1893. The second wooden church was destroyed, along with much of the town, by a windstorm in 1917. Longtime pastor Msgr. Anthony Helmbrecht took the opportunity to construct a brick church inspired by those in his childhood Bavaria. By the time construction was completed in 1921, Helmbrecht had raised $500,000, enough to build a church with a capacity of 1,200 decorate it richly. The church's interior paintings and plaster work was extensively restored in 1980s, mainly at the hands of local volunteers who trained in various restoration techniques and contributed some 20,000 hours of labor. The church continues to rely heavily on volunteers for upkeep.

Architecture

Helmbrecht hired Bavarian-American architect Anton Dohmen of Milwaukee to design the church, reportedly modeled on one in

Ruhmannsfelden Ruhmannsfelden is a larger municipality in the district of Regen, in Bavaria, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Ru ...

, Bavaria. Dohmen's previous work included Church of St. Agnes in Vermillion, as well as the Church of Ss. Peter and Paul in Strasburg, North Dakota, the Church of St. Mary’s at Assumption Abbey in Richardton, North Dakota, and the Church of St. Andrew in LeRoy, Wisconsin. The construction contract was given to Anton Zwach, a German contractor from Dubuque, Iowa. Construction began in 1917 and continued for four years, after which the new church was rededicated to St.

Anthony of Padua Anthony of Padua ( it, Antonio di Padova) or Anthony of Lisbon ( pt, António/Antônio de Lisboa; born Fernando Martins de Bulhões; 15 August 1195 – 13 June 1231) was a Portuguese people, Portuguese Catholic Church, Catholic priesthood (Cath ...

. The church is a brick Neo-Romanesque-Gothic building with an ornate portal entrance surmounted by a rose window. It has two towers. With . The interior is a basilica plan which terminates in a rounded apse, with Corinthian-columned arcades separate the nave and side aisles. The vaulted ribbed ceilings are decorated with floral and geometric stenciling highlighted in gold leaf. Church artwork references both the prairie setting of the church and the German ancestry of its parishioners;

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

s are adorned with

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s and

Saint Joseph Joseph (; el, Ἰωσήφ, translit=Ioséph) was a 1st-century Jewish man of Nazareth who, according to the canonical Gospels, was married to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and was the legal father of Jesus. The Gospels also name some brothers of ...

is wearing a Bavarian hat. Of particular note are 31

stained glass 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 ...

windows, which depict the Assumption of Mary and the

Flight into Egypt The flight into Egypt is a story recounted in the Gospel of Matthew ( Matthew 2:13– 23) and in New Testament apocrypha. Soon after the visit by the Magi, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream telling him to flee to Egypt with Mary and the i ...

among other scenes.

References

Churches in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in South Dakota Roman Catholic churches completed in 1921 Buildings and structures in Potter County, South Dakota National Register of Historic Places in Potter County, South Dakota 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States {{SouthDakota-church-stub