OLDEST - Original Church Building in Kenosha - Kenosha, WI
N 42° 34.905 W 087° 49.130
16T E 432807 N 4714695
St Matthews Episcopal Church was organized in 1840. Construction on this building started in 1872 and was completed in 1879. It is located at 5900 Seventh Ave. in Kenosha, WI.
Waymark Code: WM5H7P
Location: Wisconsin, United States
Date Posted: 01/07/2009
Views: 10
From the Library Park Historic District web site (
visit link) :
"The Episcopal congregation of St. Matthew’s was organized in 1840, the fourth Episcopal church to be organized in the old Northwest Territory.
A.H. Ellwood, an architect from Aurora, Illinois who specialized in designing churches, schools, and public buildings, was selected to design the church. Begun in 1872 and completed in 1879, the church is built of Joliet (Illinois) and Racine (Wisconsin) limestone in the Gothic Revival style. Ellwood’s work is distinctive in its duplication of historic Gothic architectural details – far more than is usually seen in works of this period.
The rusticated stonework of the church is done in a random ashlar pattern with dressed stone trim. The nave has a steeply pitched gable roof and shed roofs cover the side aisles. The west facade wall features wall buttresses that end above the roof line and are decorated with stone finials and support flying buttresses at each corner, a clock, a louvered belfrey, and a parapet with battlements. Completing the building plan is the polygonal apse on the north facade. A sacristy wing is on the west facade and a chapel wing projects from the east facade. In 1987, large Gothic windows on the south facade were replaced with contemporary stained glass windows."