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The first church of any denomination
in the coal mining area of Oak Hill in south St. Louis was the Episcopal
Church of the Holy Innocents, established in 1871. Although
the parish flourished for several decades, the coal diggings had all
disappeared by the end of the first quarter of the twentieth century,
and Holy Innocents parish went into a long period of decline, finally
closing its doors in 1935. Around the same time the Diocese
of Missouri established a new mission in south St. Louis, St. Andrew's,
to serve the newly developed area of St. Louis Hills. The members
of St. Andrew's Mission, which also incorporated members from Mount
Calvary Church, which had closed at an earlier date, at first met
to worship in the nearby Nottingham school.
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Episcopal
Church of the Holy Innocents
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In
1938, however, Bishop William Scarlett of Missouri resolved to use
a $75,000 gift in memory of Mrs. Anna Watkins to build a new
church for the St. Andrew's mission and absorbing the remaining members
from the former Holy Innocents parish. The church, dedicated
to St. Mark and located in a quiet street in the leafy St. Louis Hills
neighborhood, shows how imaginative architects can create an outstanding
design within a very limited budget. At Bishop Scarlett's insistence,
the planning of the new church was left to the artists responsible,
and there were no committees to stifle their creativity. The
firm of architects responsible was a partnership of Frederick Dunn
(1905-1984) and Charles Nagel (1899-1992). The dedication
of the new church took place on January 15, 1939, and though only
sixty years old, the building is already a historic landmark.
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Saint Mark's
Episcopal Church
4714 Clifton Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63109 |
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