St. Ambrose Cathedral is a historic building located in downtown Des Moines, Iowa, United States. It serves as a parish church and as the seat of the Diocese of Des Moines in the Catholic Church. The cathedral, along with the adjoining rectory, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
History
St. Ambrose Parish
The first Mass in what would become the city of Des Moines was celebrated in a log hut in 1851 at Fort Des Moines by Father Alexander Hattenberger, a priest from Ottumwa, Iowa. At the time, Des Moines was part of the Diocese of Dubuque, which covered the entire state of Iowa. Other priests visited the Des Moines area from time to time, including the Revs. Timothy Mullen, John Kreckel, and Louis De Cailly. In 1856, one year after the Iowa Legislature voted to move the capitol from Iowa City to its present location in Des Moines, the first St. Ambrose Church was built on land purchased by Father De Cailly. The church was built by the Rev. George Plathe, who was the first resident priest in Des Moines. It measured .
The Rev. John F. Brazill became the pastor in 1861, and he built a school in 1863. The Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary came to Des Moines to teach in the school. By 1865 a larger stone church building was constructed. The Gothic Revival structure featured two towers that flanked the main facade. Brazill was an influential person in the Church and in the society at large. Bishop Clement Smyth, OCSO named him the vicar general of the diocese, and he cultivated many contacts in state government. He acquired a great deal of real estate for himself and the Church that amounted to $250,000 at the time of his death in 1885. One of the parcels of land he owned at Sixth and High Streets became the site of a new St. Ambrose church in the 1890s.
St. Ambrose remained Des Moines' only Catholic church until 1869 when the Rev. Nicholas Sassel established St. Mary's, no longer extant, to serve the pastoral needs of the city's German community. Des Moines became a parish of the Diocese of Davenport when it was established in 1881. The Rev. Joseph Nugent founded Visitation Parish, now known as Our Lady of the Americas, the following year.
St. Ambrose Cathedral
The Rev. Michael Flavin started construction of the present church in 1890 and it was completed the following year. It was built for about $120,000. Bishop Henry Cosgrove dedicated the church on October 11 of the same year. James J. Egan of Chicago was the architect. He designed Sacred Heart Cathedral in Davenport at the same time. Flavin had seen a model for a high altar designed by Tiffany & Company displayed at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He had a copy of it made of marble in Italy for St. Ambrose.
St. John's Parish in Des Moines was created from the northern portion of St. Ambrose Parish in 1905. Its church building would be elevated to a Minor Basilica in 1989. In 1906 St. Anthony's Parish was established on the south side of Des Moines. Its establishment was opposed by Father Flavin who incorrectly insisted it was established as an Italian ethnic parish because he did not want to lose the parish territory. The following year Flavin became the first priest of the Diocese of Davenport to be named a monsignor. St. Ambrose Church was chosen to be the cathedral of the Diocese of Des Moines when it was established by Pope Pius X on August 12, 1911. St. Augustin's Parish on the west side of Des Moines was founded from St. Ambrose in 1920.