The YMCA, also known as the Young Men’s Christian association, started in 1844 in London, England. The association made its way across the sea to Indianapolis in 1854 when a group of evangelical protestants opened a building there. Being a religious association, the mission and membership revolved around church members. Their programs included readings, services, and charity work. In 1871, the YMCA opened a building on North Illinois Street. The YMCA separated itself from the church and shifted its focus toward helping the poor and charity work. Members played a role in establishing institutions such as the Home for Friendless Women, the Indiana Boys’ and Girls’ Schools, and a shelter for newsboys.
Over time, the YMCA expanded to include social and recreational activities that were accessible with a paid fee. The membership fee gave access to a park, bowling alley, swimming pool, gym, and a night school. As recreation and community activities increased their mission and charity work decreased. Today there are several YMCA locations available to the public for a fee that continues to provide pool, gym, and sport activities.
]]>Christ Church Cathedral, located on the northeast part of Monument Circle, is the oldest church building still standing in Indianapolis. Built in 1857, the stone church replaced an earlier wooden chapel from 1837. As the main church for the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis and one of the first permanent congregations in the city, Christ Church shows how important religious institutions were in shaping the social and moral life of 1800s Indianapolis. In the city’s early years, churches were often the first civic buildings to be built—sometimes before schools, banks, or government offices. Churches were not just for worship. They were also places for learning, helping others, and having public discussions. Many of Christ Church’s members were important business owners, lawyers, and public leaders who helped guide the city’s early growth. The church was also known for helping the community, offering charity programs and setting up missions to support the growing population.
Building the stone cathedral in the 1850s showed both the church’s strength and the city’s growing interest in impressive architecture. The church was designed by architect William Tinsley and includes pointed arches, stained glass windows, and a tall bell tower. These were all features of the Gothic Revival style, which was popular for churches at the time. Its location on the Circle shows how closely religion and public life were connected in early Indianapolis. The cathedral also supported the city’s cultural life. It hosted lectures, concerts, and public meetings, welcoming people from both religious and non-religious backgrounds. Its music programs, especially its long-running choir, helped give Indianapolis a strong reputation in the region. Today, Christ Church Cathedral still serves as both a place of worship and a historic landmark. As a stop on this tour, it helps us understand the spiritual, architectural, and community roles churches had during the city’s early years. It reminds us that religion in the 1800s Indianapolis was not just a personal belief, but a public force that helped shape schools, charity, and civic life.
]]>In the 1800s, social clubs and fraternal organizations with limited membership were a big part of civic life in America. One of the most important in Indianapolis was the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF). Their state headquarters, the Grand Lodge of Indiana, was built in 1851 at the southeast corner of Washington and Pennsylvania Streets. It became a well-known landmark in the city—for its architecture, its social role, and its cultural impact. This building served as the main office for Odd Fellows activities in Indiana and showed how important voluntary clubs were before the government provided many public services. Like other fraternal groups at the time, the Odd Fellows used traditions, rituals, and strong social ties to support each other. Membership was usually limited to white men from the middle and working classes. Members helped one another in tough times, such as during illness, after a death, or when someone lost a job. Before there were programs like welfare or widespread insurance, groups like the Odd Fellows were a key safety net. They also gave members a chance to move up in society by being active in the community and gaining respect.
The Grand Lodge building was large and impressive. It showed how wealthy and important the Odd Fellows were. The building had several floors with meeting rooms, offices, and spaces for their ceremonies. These rooms were used not just by the Odd Fellows, but also for public events, political talks, and cultural programs. Newspapers often wrote about what the lodge was doing. The group also helped people in need, like orphans, widows, and the poor—doing the kind of charity work that cities and states hadn’t started doing yet. The Odd Fellows’ location in downtown Indianapolis helped shape how the city saw itself. Lodges like this one encouraged people to take part in their community. They worked alongside churches, trade groups, and political clubs to bring people together. These groups helped connect neighbors, workers, and people from different political sides. Although the original Grand Lodge building is gone, the spot where it once stood reminds us how much fraternal organizations shaped city life in the 1800s. Much of the support and community people needed back then came not from the government, but from groups built on tradition, helping others, and friendship.
]]>St. Mary of the Knobs Catholic Church exemplifies the enduring strength of Roman Catholicism in southern Indiana. In the 1820s, Catholic priests began visiting several families in Lafayette Township, six miles north of New Albany, to celebrate mass. About 1823 residents of the era erected a small log church for their services. In 1833, Father Louis Neyron became the first resident priest. A Frenchman, Neyron had served in Napoleon Bonaparte’s army as a surgeon. Upon turning to the priesthood he emigrated to the United States and ministered to a parish in Mooresville, near Indianapolis. Tradition holds that Catholic families settled in Floyds Knobs because of anti-Catholic sentiments in New Albany.
Soon after becoming the priest at Lafayette Township, Neyron oversaw construction of the first permanent Catholic church in Floyd County. Erected on a site near the log building, it was built of brick and measured 33 x 73 feet. A bell imported from France called parishioners to mass. The sanctuary featured a large crucifix and a statue of St. Joseph.
In 1906, Father Joseph J. Sermersheim began planning for construction of a new chapel. The foundation was poured in 1908, and within a year parish members and local contractors completed the project. The chapel measures 54 x 100 feet and is designed in the English Gothic style. Built at a cost of $35,000, the building was dedicated on May 16, 1909. A reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal descried it as “one of the handsomest country churches in Indiana.”
Construction of the new chapel took place as part of an expansion of the parish’s programs. During the 1890s, St. Mary of the Knobs built a residence for several Benedictine nuns who came to the parish to start a school. A building for the school was completed about 1900.
Apart from minor repairs, the St. Mary of the Knobs chapel remained unchanged for eighty-seven years. In 1995, the congregation initiated renovations. Workers added a new sound system, refurbished the interior, and removed the eight-foot gold cross from the steeple to be regilded, a project that used 600 3.375” square sheets of gold.
In 2007, St. Mary of the Knobs began a third major building campaign after a parishioner donated thirty-three acres of land adjacent to the church’s existing 59-acre campus. The congregation immediately began raising funds for a new church building and an activity center. The design of the new church pays homage to the 1909 chapel and has a seating capacity of 964. Art and icons in the sanctuary include handcrafted works by parishioners. Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein of Indianapolis dedicated the building at a ceremony held March 25, 2012. The congregation named the activity center for a former pastor, Reverend John Geis.
]]>Atkins Chapel is one of the oldest places of worship in southern Indiana. In 1822, Jacob Antrim, a United Brethren circuit-riding preacher, organized a church in Lafayette Township, immediately north of New Albany, in Floyds Knobs. The congregation met for twenty years in a small log building near the intersection of Banet and Balmer Fenwick roads. The United Brethren grew out of the Great Awakening. A loosely organized movement, it took root in German-speaking churches in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Ohio. Antrim, recalled as “a good signer, an ingenious preacher, [and] a great exhorter,” brought the faith to southern Indiana, where it spread among early settlers. The congregation of the “Knobs Church,” as the Lafayette Township group became known, declined after a time and eventually disbanded.
In 1845, John A. Atkins, his wife, and several other settlers organized a new church in Lafayette Township. Atkins, a minister and farmer, descended from early settlers. His brothers, Henry and William, also joined the church, and Thomas Conner served as the first minister. The congregation met in a log church formerly used by group of Swedenborgians. This building served the congregation for about a quarter century, when it decided to build a new, more modern structure. John Atkins donated land on Atkins Road, directly opposite the site of the Swedenborgian church, and members of the congregation and neighbors erected “a neat, white frame building.” Because of Atkins’s influence, the structure came to be called “Atkins Chapel.”
Although an 1882 account described Atkins Chapel as “not a strong church,” the congregation grew over time. In 1908, members opted to build a new house of worship. Erected at a cost of $2,500, the new structure measured 24 x 36 feet and with an adjoining vestibule. On August 23, 1908, between 300 and 400 people attended a dedication ceremony led by Reverend J. P. Roberts of Indianapolis. Describing the event for the Religious Telescope, the United Brethren newspaper, a short while later, Roberts claimed he had “never seen a congregation in as limited circumstances . . . give quote so freely and cheerfully.” By the end of the day, the church had raised nearly $700, a sum adequate to sustain its activities for some time.
In 1946, the liberal wing of the United Brethren merged with the Evangelical Association, a Pennsylvania-based group of churches with similar beliefs, to form the Evangelical United Brethren Church. In 1968, this organization merged with Methodist Church to form the United Methodist Church (UMC). Atkins Chapel is today known as Atkins Chapel United Methodist. In 1956, the congregation built an annex and enlarged the church basement to provide new classrooms and a fellowship hall.
The late twentieth-century history of Atkins Chapel is closely associated with Reverend Adrian Struble, who served as minster for twenty-four years before retiring in June 1990. Struble, then aged 99, was believed to be the oldest active United Methodist minister in Indiana.
]]>Dedicated in October 1977, the Holy Trinity Heritage Court commemorates the history of Roman Catholics in southern Indiana. The court marks the site of the former Holy Trinity Church. The court includes portions of the original brick foundation of the church and two bronze bells. Fire destroyed the church on December 29, 1975. Holy Trinity Heritage Court is a a site of remembrance, celebration, and pilgrimage for Catholics in southern Indiana.
Holy Trinity Church served as the first of four Catholic parishes in New Albany. The site of the church has been an anchor of Catholicism in New Albany since 1837, when Father Louis Neyron purchased the lot and had a small one-story structure built on the location to offer mass. As membership grew, parishioners developed plans for the construction of a brick church. Tensions between Irish and German parishioners resulted in a split. When completed in 1852, the Gothic-style church building served the Irish members. In 1865, Father John Mougin blessed two bronze bells in a special ceremony. During the December 29, 1975, fire, the bells fell from the steeple and cracked on the front steps of the building.
Following the fire, the Archdiocese of Indianapolis rejected plans to rebuild on the site. Holy Trinity parishioners joined St. Mary’s of the Annunciation and other Catholic churches in the area. Members of the former parish chose to allocate money from the insurance settlement for the construction of Holy Trinity Heritage Court. In April 1977, former members of the church helped plant 150 trees on the site to commemorate the parish’s history. Many of the former church buildings have been repurposed; the former rectory served as the location of religious agencies for thirty years. Recently, the St. Elizabeth Maternity Center completed a full renovation of the building to serve as its central office.
]]>Presbyterians have been active in New Albany since its beginnings in 1813. The Scribner family, which founded the town, brought their Presbyterian faith with them from New England. Presbyterians in New Albany and the neighboring town of Jeffersonville, Indiana, formed a joint congregation in 1816 under the direction of Reverend James McGready. By December 1817, the congregation had split. The New Albany contingent subsequently established the First Presbyterian Church of New Albany. The first formal meeting of the church took place at the Scribner’s house on East Main Street. The location of church meetings varied until the congregation built a permanent structure in 1854. The building stood on the east side of Bank Street between Main and Market streets. It served First Presbyterian until the congregation consolidated with St. John United Presbyterian Church in 1969.
Conflict over abolition split the First Presbyterian congregation in 1837. Most members viewed slavery as wrong but wished to remain passive observers. Others urged active participation in abolitionism. The later group formed the Second Presbyterian Church of New Albany, which soon became a center of antislavery activity. According to local tradition, the congregation used their new building, now known as the Town Clock Church, to shelter runaway slaves. Church leaders such as Reverends Sneed and Atterbury, and congregation elders like James Brooks, the church hid and transported runaway slaves well into the Civil War.
In 1853 the Presbyterian Church split due to pressures from the large size of the congregation. The split formed the Third Presbyterian Church. All three Presbyterian Churches functioned separately for over 60 years. In 1917, the Second and Third churches united as the Hutchinson Presbyterian Church. The new congregation named itself after a prominent pastor.
In 1969, New Albany Presbyterians united as one congregation. They formed the present day St. John United Presbyterian Church. The congregation is located in a former building of Second Presbyterian Church.
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