St. Patrick's Church is a historic

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

church built in 1885 in

Eau Claire, Wisconsin Eau Claire ( ; lit. "clear water") is a city in Eau Claire County, Wisconsin, Eau Claire and Chippewa County, Wisconsin, Chippewa counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is the county seat, seat of Eau Claire County. It is the List of citie ...

. It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1983 for its architectural significance. St. Patrick's parish was established in the 1850s by missionaries from Chippewa Falls, with a frame church built on N. Barstow Street in 1858. The parish added a school in 1870. In 1875 some of the German-speaking families split off to form Sacred Heart Church. In 1880 St. Patrick's bought the current lot at the corner of Fulton and Oxford, dedicating their new church building in 1882, but it burned in 1884, before they could finish the brick veneer. In the next year the current church was built on the same site. With The current (1885) church was designed by Abraham M. Radcliffe - a brick building with a gable roof and three matched doors across the front. Above the doors are a window and wall recesses holding statues. To each side of the front door stands a square tower - the right tower has four stages and the left three. The towers and the side walls are

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 (typically Gothic) buildings, as a means of providing support to act ...

ed. On the exterior, Radcliffe mixes styles, with narrow

lancet windows A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a sharp pointed arch at its top. This arch may or may not be a steep lancet arch (in which the compass centres for drawing the arch fall outside the opening). It acquired the "lancet" name from its rese ...

suggesting

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...

style, yet some round arches suggest

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 t ...

. An old postcard suggests that the right tower was once larger, topped with a steeple much taller than the current tower. Edward Henneberry and Cornelius Webster oversaw the stonework, and Henneberry the woodwork. Built at the height of the log drives on the Chippewa River, St. Patrick's is the oldest surviving church building in Eau Claire.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Patricks Church, Eau Claire, Wisconsin Churches in the Roman Catholic Diocese of La Crosse Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin Churches in Eau Claire, Wisconsin Romanesque Revival church buildings in Wisconsin Roman Catholic churches completed in 1885 Gothic Revival church buildings in Wisconsin National Register of Historic Places in Eau Claire County, Wisconsin 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States