1805 South Eighth Street (at Soulard)
St. Louis, Missouri 63104
www.trinitystlouis.com

Immigrants from Saxony founded Trinity Lutheran Church in 1839, and it was long a stronghold of the German tradition. It is the mother church of the Missouri Synod denomination and until 1887 administered all the other Lutheran churches in the city. Concordia Seminary, founded in 1849, and Concordia Publishing House, founded in 1869, trace their origins to this congregation, as does the Lutheran parochial school system. Trinity Lutheran School next door was founded at the same time as the church and is now the oldest elementary school in St. Louis in continuous service.

The first church on this site was built in 1865, but it was destroyed in the great tornado of 1896, which devastated the whole south side of St. Louis and also delayed the building of a new Catholic cathedral. In that same year, however, the present church was begun, and its architect was probably Charles F. May, who was rebuilding the school after the tornado, as well as St. Paul Evangelical Church immediately behind (now the 9th Street Abbey restaurant). The present Trinity Church is somewhat smaller than its predecessor, leaving space for a modern rectory, and its spire is 25 feet shorter. The open auditorium plan, considered more modern, eliminates the previous side aisles. The pulpit and baptismal font were salvaged from the old building. Max Autenrieb Art Studio of Edwardsville, Illinois, restored and redecorated the interior in 1989, selecting the rose color scheme to highlight the typically late-Victorian Gothic architectural features.

The Soulard neighborhood around the church declined precipitously earlier in this century, but the last two decades have seen its revival. Today the setting of Trinity Lutheran Church, with its wrought iron fence enclosing the red brick buildings within the red brick neighborhood, evokes the scale and ambiance of the nineteenth century pedestrian city.

The Chamber Chorus has often sung at this church, and has given world premières of works by Ronald Arnatt, Sasha Johnson Manning, and Stuart McIntosh here. The association of the Chamber Chorus with ‘Old Trinity’ was due in part to a parishioner and Chorus member, Richard Hansen, at whose funeral here in 1996 the Chorus sang movements from Duruflé’s Requiem.

Notes by Esley Hamilton and Philip Barnes
Photo by Roger Hill