Stone High Victorian Gothic walls front Grace Episcopal Church at 1115 36th Street, and the story of this block is written into them. The congregation began as a mission Sunday School founded by the Rectory of Trinity Church in Galveston for suburban residents in the 1840s. In 1876 those members received permission from the rector to establish Grace Episcopal Church and first worshipped in a wooden sanctuary at the corner of Avenue L and 36th Street.
A large gift from Henry Rosenberg—$30,000—changed everything. The congregation commissioned Nicholas J. Clayton to design a new stone church; the building is recorded as built in 1894 and the new sanctuary was completed in 1895 after the old building was moved down the street. In recognition of its history and architecture, this church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
As you stand here, imagine the wooden chapel that once stood at the corner and the hands that raised the stone you see now. Picture the wooden chapel this corner held, replaced by Clayton's stone sanctuary in 1895.