St Louis R C Church

Since this is downtown, it was one of the first churches in Buffalo. As Buffalo spread outward the church’s were built farther from the center. This was the oldest Catholic congregation in Buffalo. In 1821 a Catholic priest from NY came to Buffalo to offer a sermon. The 5 Catholic families of Buffalo came to the sermon (held in an Episcopal Church). But 5 families is enough to have a need for a church, and people starting thinking about it.
A wealthy local Catholic, Le Couteulx donated the land at Main and Edward to the Diocese of NY. He wanted a church to be built, one with a school and cemetery. And it was to be open to all Catholics, regardless of where they may have been from.
The parishioners were a poor group, so they built their first house of worship themselves. It looked like a log building because it was. But it was a church, and they were proud. in the 1840s they needed to make their house of worship larger, so they started to build around the existing structure. Once that was complete they took down the log one, and carried it out piece by piece. They did not have Bishop Timons approval for this project and they did it while he was travelling. As a result, he excommunicated them from the church when he came back. There was a lot of turmoil around this Church, which had become more or less German by this time, the Irish and French had moved to other churches over the years.
This structre was destroyed by fire some time later. So they built the third church, which we see today. Gothic style, it has a 245 foot tower which could be seen (this was before skyscrapers) from most any part of the city and the lake. This church seats 1900.
Its fantastically beautiful on the inside and well worth a tour.

This is truly one of the most beautiful churches in NY. You have to see to believe. This is a true architectural wonder. What a great work of art for the greater glory of God. If visiting and looking for a great church for Mass… check it out.