St. Michael's Church in the Old Town

Old Town, Chicago

Old Town is a neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois, bounded by the Ogden Ave. right-of-way on the northwest, Larrabee Street on the west, Clybourn Avenue on the southwest and Division Street on the south and Clark Street on the east and northeast. It spans across eastern parts of the community areas...

 neighborhood of Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 is a Roman Catholic church staffed by the Redemptorist order of priests. The parish was founded to minister to German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 Catholic immigrants in 1852 with its first wooden church completed that year at a cost of $750 (including the bell). The building stands at an intersection between Eugenie and Cleveland street. The church was built as a haven for German immigrants who were outcasts in Old Chicago. In addition, the town's main church, St. Joseph's Church, was overcrowded. The Redemptorists were invited to administer the parish in 1860 and a large brick church was finished in 1869. When completed, its tower made it the tallest building in Chicago, a distinction it held until the old Chicago Board of Trade

Chicago Board of Trade

The Chicago Board of Trade , established in 1848, is the world's oldest futures and options exchange. More than 50 different options and futures contracts are traded by over 3,600 CBOT members through open outcry and eTrading. Volumes at the exchange in 2003 were a record breaking 454 million...

 building was completed in 1885.

The church was one of six buildings to 'survive' the path of the Great Chicago Fire

Great Chicago Fire

The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned from Sunday, October 8, to early Tuesday, October 10, 1871, killing hundreds and destroying about in Chicago, Illinois. Though the fire was one of the largest U.S...

 of 1871, albeit heavily damaged. While most of Old Chicago's infrastructure was made of wood, the church was made of brick which helped it survive the fire. Portions of the building survived—the stone walls of St. Michael's being the only structures standing in the Old Town area. The church was quickly rebuilt.

It is said in Chicago that if you can hear the bells of St. Michael's, you are in Old Town. Old Town in the mid 1950s was home to a large population of Puerto Ricans. Cesario Rivera, Miguel Chevere, Don Jesus Rodriguez and many others organized Council Number Three of the Caballeros de San Juan. With the help of Father Katherine, they started Spanish language masses in a hall next to the Church. The Daughters of Mary or Damas de Maria were also organized by Clotilde Rodriguez, Monin Jimenez, family members of the Flores, Calixtos, Rivera, Trinidads and Eugenia Rodriguez, mother to Jose (Cha-Cha) Jimenez, the founder of the Latino human rights organization Young Lords

Young Lords

The Young Lords, later Young Lords Organization and in New York , Young Lords Party, was a Puerto Rican nationalist group in several United States cities, notably New York City and Chicago.-Founding:...

. Samuel Stritch, the renowned cardinal, and Jack Eagan assisted the Caballeros and Damas de Maria early on within the Cardinal's Committee for the Spanish Speaking. They later organized many retreats and pilgrimages to the Redemptorist Retreat Center in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin and to Libertyville, Illinois. A large lay ministry for Catholic Action

Catholic Action

Catholic Action was the name of many groups of lay Catholics who were attempting to encourage a Catholic influence on society.They were especially active in the nineteenth century in historically Catholic countries that fell under anti-clerical regimes such as Spain, Italy, Bavaria, France, and...

 was organized from St. Mike's in Old Town that spread to several parishes in Old Town

Old Town

Old Town is the typical designation of a historic or original core of a city or town. Although the city may be larger in its present form, many cities have redesignated this part of the city to commemorate its origins after thorough renovations...

 and the Lincoln Park

Lincoln Park, Chicago

Lincoln Park, is one of the 77 community areas on Chicago, Illinois North Side, USA. Named after Lincoln Park, a vast park bordering Lake Michigan, the community area is anchored by the Lincoln Park Zoo and DePaul University...

 Community, like at Immaculate Conception,St. Teresa's and St. Sylvester's. There were some objections with a few of the then predominant Polish and German congregation of St. Michael's who dominated for many years and didn't want Puerto Ricans in the regular chapel. But the Caballeros and Damas ignored the ignorance of some and sought community with prayer, while recruiting door to door for their meetings and events. Eventually, St. Michael's Church also grew to become a major center within Chicago's Puerto Rican Community. When Mayor Richard J. Daley's urban renewal program began, it was the Old Town Triangle Organization of the Lincoln Park Conservation Association that took the lead in promoting urban renewal in the area. St. Michael's like many other neighborhood institutions took advantage of the program to rehab and to expand. But in the process, most of the Puerto Rican and other Latino parishioners were displaced from Lincoln Park. It is difficult to know how many, because the census then recorded "Hispanics" by race;as either black or white. But most of today's Chicago's Puerto Rican businesses and community organizations trace themselves back to Lincoln Park. In fact in 1965, the first official Puerto Rican parade was organized by St. Michael's parishioners, their Damas and Caballeros of St. John the Baptist councils and the Puerto Rican Congress of Larrabee and North Avenue Streets.