PlacesPages: The Dalles #43: St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church

Saturday, August 8, 2015

The Dalles #43: St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church

Third and Lincoln Streets

St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church on June 10, 2009

The Cornerstone for St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church was laid July 25, 1897, and the Gothic Revival-style church was dedicated on St. Patrick's Day in 1898. The brick church measures 120 by 40 feet and is oriented east to west.

St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church on October 20, 2009

The louvered belfry contains a 533-pound bell and is topped by a steeple that reached a height of 176 feet and a cross and six-foot-tall rooster weathervane made by Frank S. Gunning that turns on ball bearings that have never needed to be repaired or replaced.

St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church on October 20, 2009

The church features 6 rose windows and 34 stained glass windows by Povey Brothers of Portland, Oregon, a stamped tin ceiling embossed with floral designs that is 40 feet high at its highest point, a hand-carved alter of Italian Carrara marble, a Kilgen pipe organ made of rare African tigerwood that was installed in 1927, and a statue of the Virgin Mary carved from the keel off a sailing ship that sank off the San Francisco coast in the 1850s, a gift of from the Vogt and Chapman families in memory of a relative saved from the shipwreck.

St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church on October 20, 2009

The building was used as a church until 1969. It was saved from demolition by a group of concerned citizens and was purchased in 1971 by Old St. Peter's Landmark Preservation, Inc. Frank Gunning's daughter was the first person to donate toward saving the church. All the money used to maintain the landmark come from private citizens. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 20, 1974. The roof of galvanized iron Spanish tile lasted nearly 100 years before being replaced in October 1995 with tile designed in Canada to match the original.

St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church on October 20, 2009