St. Peter's Catholic Church is a parish of the

Diocese of Des Moines The Diocese of Des Moines () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in southwestern Iowa in the United States. It is a suffragan see in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Dubuque. ...

. The church is located in

Council Bluffs, Iowa Council Bluffs is a city in and the county seat of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, Pottawattamie County, Iowa, United States. The population was 62,799 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the state's List of cities in Iowa, te ...

, United States. It was listed on 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 1992 as St. Peter's Church and Rectory.

History

St. Peter's Parish traces its roots to a group of German women who formed an organization in 1884 to raise money for a Catholic church to serve the German community of Council Bluffs. The organization collected 25 cents monthly from each member. At the time they belonged to the predominantly Irish St. Francis Xavier Parish. with The German Catholic men organized themselves in 1886 in order to support the establishment of their own parish. Bishop Henry Cosgrove of the

Diocese of Davenport The Diocese of Davenport () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction, or diocese, of the Roman Catholicism in the United States, Catholic Church for the southeastern quarter of the state of Iowa in the United States. The current bishop of D ...

, and the Rev. B.P. McMenony from St. Francis Xavier both approved of the plan. The parish was formed on April 25, 1887. It was served by

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

monks from St. Benedict's Abbey in

Atchison, Kansas Atchison is a city in, and the county seat of, Atchison County, Kansas, United States, along the Missouri River. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 10,885. The city is named in honor of US Senator ...

, as there was a shortage of German-speaking priests at that time in the Davenport diocese.

Rock Island, Illinois Rock Island is a city in Rock Island County, Illinois, United States, and its county seat. The population was 37,108 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Located at the confluence of the Rock River (Mississippi River tributary), Rock a ...

architect Mathias Schnell designed the church, and Wickham Brothers of Council Bluffs was responsible for its construction. It was completed in 1887 for $11,126. The following year the men of the parish built a frame schoolhouse for the

parochial school A parochial school is a private school, private Primary school, primary or secondary school affiliated with a religious organization, and whose curriculum includes general religious education in addition to secular subjects, such as science, mathem ...

. By the end of 1888, a frame

convent A convent is an enclosed community of monks, nuns, friars or religious sisters. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The term is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican ...

was built for the Benedictine Sisters who taught in the school. Both of these buildings were replaced in 1924 with a brick, combination school building and convent. The brick

rectory A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of a given religion, serving as both a home and a base for the occupant's ministry. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, p ...

next to the church was completed for the Benedictine priests in 1895. Wickham Brothers was also responsible for building the rectory. St. Peter's became a parish in the Diocese of Des Moines when it was formed in 1911. St. Peter's along with St. Mary's in Des Moines (no longer extant) were the only two ethnic parishes, meaning non-territorial, in the diocese. They both served German congregations. St. Peter's status as an ethnic parish ended in 1974 when Bishop Maurice Dingman merged it with St. Francis Xavier Parish. The St. Francis church building was taken down while the St. Peter's building was maintained for the merged parish. The clergy from the Des Moines diocese took over from the Benedictines in 1975. The church and rectory were placed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 24, 1992.

Architecture

The church building is a late 19th-century

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 ...

structure. It features a symmetrical facade on the

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 ...

end and a central bell tower capped with a

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spire ...

. The side elevations are six

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

long and are divided by alternating

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 ...

es and

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

Lancet window 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 ...

s are located in the center of each bay. The

apsidal In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In Byzant ...

end of the church features three lancet windows located high in the walls. Brick

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal keyed into and projecting from a wall to carry a wikt:superincumbent, bearing weight, a type of bracket (architecture), bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in t ...

ing is located at the

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

level. The only alteration to the exterior was the addition of a handicap entrance. The interior is divided in three

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

s, separated by columns. In 2001 the interior of the church was renovated and the statues and frescoes were embellished. A new parish hall was completed in 1999 and the office addition was completed in 2006. The rectory is a 2½-story, brick residential building. It features a full-size porch on the front, segmental arched windows, a

lunette A lunette (French ''lunette'', 'little moon') is a crescent- or half-moon–shaped or semi-circular architectural space or feature, variously filled with sculpture, painted, glazed, filled with recessed masonry, or void. A lunette may also be ...

window and a corbelled brick

frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

. Between the church and the rectory is an Our Lady of Grace shrine constructed by the Rev. J.J. Hannan, S.J. around 1958.

References

External links

St. Peter’s Parish website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Peters Catholic Church (Council Bluffs, Iowa) Christian organizations established in 1887 Roman Catholic churches completed in 1887 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States Gothic Revival church buildings in Iowa Churches in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Des Moines National Register of Historic Places in Pottawattamie County, Iowa Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa Religious buildings and structures in Council Bluffs, Iowa German-American culture in Iowa 1887 establishments in Iowa