St. Stephen’s Lutheran / Good Shepherd Catholic

Good Shepherd Catholic Church and rectory photographed ca. 1920 by Hugh McKenzie. [Image: University of Minnesota Duluth Kathryn A. Martin Library Special Collections & Archives]

109 South 59th Avenue West/5905 Raleigh St | Architect: Unknown | Built: 1894 | Lost: 1959

Organized in 1890, West Duluth’s St. Stephen’s Lutheran German Evangelical congregation built its church in 1894 on the southwest corner of Sixty-Seventh Avenue West and Raleigh Street. The small clapboard building featured several lancet windows and a square, steepleless tower over the front entrance along Raleigh Street. In 1916 the congregation of St. Stephen’s moved on, selling their church to the Good Shepherd Roman Catholic congregation. Good Shepherd was organized in 1914 by Southern Italian immigrants who were soon joined by their Catholic Slavonian neighbors. The congregation purchased lots at 5905 Raleigh Street and moved the church building to the new site by rolling it down Raleigh Street on logs. The building was then enlarged and remodeled with an addition to the rear, a pyramidal steeple for the tower, and a Gothic entrance fitted with stained-glass windows. The building served until 1959 when the congregation had it demolished after they constructed a new facility next door. The Duluth Diocese closed the 1916 Good Shepherd in 1997 due to a shortage of priests. In 1999 the building became the home of the Raleigh-Edison Charter School.

St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church ca. 1894. [Image: Duluth Public Library]