St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, the cathedral church of the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa, sits here in downtown Des Moines where you have stopped. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as St. Paul's Episcopal Church. Today the cathedral reported 366 members in 2023; no membership statistics were reported in 2024 parochial reports. Plate and pledge income in 2024 was $248,192 with an average Sunday attendance of 108.
Its story begins October 15, 1854, when the first service was held at Fort Des Moines for ten communicants. A brick and frame church was completed in 1857 on Seventh Street between Locust and Walnut after earlier services in the old Polk County Courthouse. By 1870 the congregation decided to replace that building and purchased this current site, and it would be another 13 years before construction began on the new church.
The present church building was completed in 1885, and the first service here was celebrated at Easter. It was designed by Des Moines architect William Foster of the firm Foster & Liebbe in the Gothic manner. Notice this Gothic façade rising over downtown Des Moines.