It was the first Polish church in the industrial district of South Chicago, where Poles began to settle in the early 1870s, when the area developed dynamically, providing numerous jobs in factories, steel works and rolling mills. In 1881 members of the Society of St. Vincent a Paolo, which functioned among the local Polish community, turned to Fr. Wincenty Barzyński, the parish priest of St. Stanislaus Kostka’s, for his help in establishing a parish. Fr. Jan Radziejowski took care of the faithful and a year later the parish was officially created. Soon a wooden two-story building was erected on the plots purchased at 88th Street and Commercial Avenue; it comprised a church on the first floor, and a school and probably rooms for the sisters on the ground floor. In 1884, an outbuilding was adapted as a presbytery, and in the following year the first convent for the nuns was built. Nature seemed to be unfavorable to the investors as repeated hurricanes and fires delayed the construction and enforced continuous repair works.

In 1894 the wooden building housing the church and the school was destroyed by a fire, and the construction of a new church began in its place in the same year. The cornerstone was laid on November 11, 1894 and consecrated by Archbishop Patrick A. Feehan, who subsequently dedicated the church on April 23, 1899. The new parish community developed dynamically. Within a few years the initial number of 150 families increased to 15,000 parishioners and to as many as 25,000 in 1918, even though three more parishes were created at that time: St. Michael the Archangel (in 1892), St. Mary Magdalene (in 1910) and St. Bronislava (in 1928). Numerous lay confraternities were active in the parish. Apart from deepening the religiousness of the members, the confraternities offered various forms of cultural and social patriotic activity. In 1884 the parish started to organize events to celebrate the anniversary of the November Uprising and, for the first time in Chicago, of the May 3rd Constitution.

The demographic situation began to change during the Second World War. Ministry in Polish was abandoned as early as in 1942 (after the death of the parish priest Fr. Franciszek Wojtalewicz), and since the 1960s the Polish moving to richer districts of the city have been replaced by representatives of other ethnic groups. In 1984 the school was closed. The situation of the district deteriorated significantly as a result of mass liquidation of industrial plants. In 1992 the last steel works were closed down. However, the church still serves the faithful and the parish is actively involved in charity work for several hundred families belonging to it. In 1998 the school was reopened and the Daughters of Mary Immaculate of Guadalupe took up the work.

The Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built according to the design of Martin A. Carr in the Renaissance Revival style with Roman esque Revival elements. It is a two-story three-nave basilica with a shallow, polygonally terminated chancel. Facing Commercial Avenue there is a five-axis façade with a high tower on the axis, preceded by a platform with a two-flight staircase. The two-colored brickwork of the walls gives the building a decorative appearance.

The modest interior was decorated in 1900 by the artist Harold Hall of Milwaukee, and in 1947 it was refurbished. At that time two canvases depicting scenes from the life of St. Stanislaus the Bishop and the Martyr were moved from the presbytery to the school and replaced with images of the Evangelists by Burkhe Adams. Besides that, the Columbia Glass Company of Milwaukee was commissioned to replace the stained glass in the chancel and the main nave. The stained glass windows from the aisles, made in 1903 by the local studio Hans Muench, were left intact. They are images of saints, and include a unique depiction of Joan of Arc, a holy virgin and patron saint of France. Reportedly, noteworthy iconography was also represented among the replaced stained glass, in the image of a manacled figure of Polonia.

The present modest furnishings of the church comprise two wooden altars with historicizing forms. In the main altar there are figures of the patroness, Mary Immaculately Conceived, and saints. The side altar holds a copy of the icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa, and was originally dedicated to St. Joseph. It is known that in 1907 there was also an altar of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Some of the original furnishings of the church are still stored in the church and presbytery. The purchase of new marble furnishings was planned for the 50th anniversary in 1932; however, the Great Depression thwarted these plans.

A noteworthy feature is the modest monument erected on the plaza near the church, commemorating the parishioners who died on the battlefields of the 20th century and paying tribute to American war veterans.

Chronology

1882 - erection of the parish of Immaculate Conception

1894 - fire of the wooden building, beginning of construction of a brick church

1899 - dedication of the church by Archbishop Patrick A. Feehan

1900 - decoration of the church interior by Harold Hall of Milwaukee

1901 - construction of the school building

1903 - stained-glass windows in the church are made by Hans Muench Studio Chicago

1905 - erection of the presbytery (the fourth time)

1945 and 1947 - renovation of the church

1956-1957 - construction of the sisters’ convent (the fourth time)

1966 - changes in the interior decoration of the church

Text originally published in a book issued by the POLONIKA Institute.
Katarzyna Chrudzimska-Uhera, Anna Sylwia Czyż, Jacek Gołębiowski, Bartłomiej Gutowski, Polish parishes and churches in Chicago, Warszawa 2019, pp. 82-89.