Winona, a shipbuilding and fishing city picturesquely located on the banks of the Mississippi River, derived its name from a legendary Sioux princess. In mid-19th century it became a centre of settlement of emigrants from Kashubia fleeing poverty and Germanization. The Polish parish was established in Winona very early, in 1871, when a hundred families from the Prussian partition had settled in the city. Among those most actively involved in creating a parish were August and Marcin Bambenek, Franciszek Drażkowski, Mikołaj Tryba, Jan Czapiewski and August Cierzan, but also Fr. Alojzy Plut from the German parish of St. Joseph, to which the Poles belonged at the beginning. A year later a wooden church was constructed, but the first parish priest, Fr. Józef Juszkiewicz, was not appointed until 1873, and two years later he was replaced by Father Aleksander Michnowski. In September 1875 the parish was taken over by the Franciscan Fr. Romuald Byżewski, who had come to the USA from Kashubia. In 1887 a school run by the School Sisters of Notre Dame was opened in a wooden twostorey six-classroom building; a brick convent for the nuns was built in 1892. Before the school was constructed the children had been taught by the church organist Dominik Hamerski in one of the rooms of the presbytery.

However, the rapidly growing Polish community in Winona needed more and more spaceto carry out their extensive religious, but also mutual-help and patriotic activity, hence the decision to first enlarge the church (1883), and then demolish it altogether and construct a bigger one in its place. On 28 October 1894 on the plot emptied by the demolition there was a consecration of the cornerstone for the construction of a new church. The new church was dedicated by Bishop Joseph B. Cotter a year later, on Thanksgiving Day, which has always been a very significant day for building the American identity out of the ethnic and religious mosaic. The day-long, splendid celebrations attracted not only the local elite and several dozen priests from the northern United States, but also pickpockets, who, operating in the thick crowd, deprived several citizens and visitors of large sums of money, as was duly reported in local newspapers the following day. Actually, there had already been problems before, as Antoni F. Wasilewski’s company started construction works on the church without proper permits.

The church for nearly 2000 people was designed in the studio of Charles Grandison Maybury, which he ran in Winona between 1881 and 1904 together with his son Jefferson. They erected many of the city’s most important public and private buildings, including churches. Of these, the most magnificent is the Church of St. Stanislaw Kostka. Among the so called Polish Cathedrals it is a rare example of the use of the central plan as well as a vault suggesting the existence of a dome. The Winona church was modeled on the Notre Dame Church in Chicago (1889-1892), built for French immigrants.

The two-tower building with a basement, where a social room was designed, was built with skeleton frame construction (steel, concrete, brick, wood). The vault over the bright, spacious interior is almost 50 m above the floor, supported by only four steel columns. They are covered with scagliola (an imitation of marble), which together with the oak finish of the two-level gallery and multicolored stained-glass windows creates an impression of dignity and grandeur of the interior. The roof lantern, the towers and the corners of the building are topped with statues of saints: St. Stanislaus Kostka with Child Jesus, the Jesuit St. Aloysius Gonzaga, who was canonized on the same day as Stanisław Kostka, i.e. 31 December 1726, St. John the Evangelist, St. Casimir Jagiellonian and angels blowing trumpets.

Originally the church featured altars from the old church, demolished in 1883. In 1919 two new side altars dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Christ and to Our Lady of the Rosary were set up, and a year later a scagliola altar under a gilded cyborium, commissioned in Carrara, Italy, was set up in the chancel. In 1947 the interior of the church was repainted and a year later a new organ and new confessionals were installed and the chancel was renovated. At the same time on the eastern side of the church a grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes was erected, built of stones from Arcadia, Wisconsin.

Unfortunately, in early June 1966 the roof lantern of the church was struck by lightning, causing a fire. The structure of the vault was weakened and there was considerable damage to the interior, including the altars and stained glass windows. The gradual reconstruction and restoration of the church lasted until 1971. Subsequent renovations were carried out in 1991-1995, when a new baptismal font, pulpit, but also a copy of Michelangelo’s Pietà and a black-marble altar made in Carrara were set up inside.

In addition to the altars and stained-glass windows depicting saints, made by George A. Misch of Chicago, an important testimony to the history of the parish is the missionary cross from 1899 (restored in 1976). Also preserved in the sacristy, though no longer used, is a reinforced cabinet produced by “HERRING HALL MARVIN CO. / CINCINNATI & MINNEAPOLIS”.

On 10 November 2011 Pope Benedict XVI, emphasizing the importance of one of the oldest Polish parishes in the USA not only for the Polish American community but also for the universal Church, designated the church as a Minor Basilica. The ceremony conducted by Bishop John Quinin took place a year later, on 9 September.

Chronology

1871 - establishing the parish of St. Stanislaus Kostka in Winona

1871 - establishing the parish of St. Stanislaus Kostka in Winona

1883 - extending the church

1887 - opening the school run by the School Sisters of the Notre Dame

1894 - demolition of the old church and starting the construction of the new church

1895 - 28 November dedication of the new church

1898 - constructing the presbytery

1905 - constructing a new school building

1920 - refurbishment of the chancel

1952 - construction of a new school building

1966 - 5 July church fire

1981 - restoration to stained-glass windows

1989 - installation of an elevator for the disabled

1991–95 - major renovation to the church

2011 - designating the Church of St. Stanislaus Kostka as a Minor Basilica

Text originally published in a book issued by the POLONIKA Institute.
Anna Sylwia Czyż, Bartłomiej Gutowski, Paweł Sieradzki, Polish Parishes and Churches in Milwaukke, Winsconsin and Massachusetts, Warszawa 2021, pp. 217-227.