Originally, the parish held its services at St. Agatha Academy, a shelter and school for orphans which was run by the Sisters of Mercy and located on the future site of Mercy Hospital. Here, each Sunday in a small room with the school benches cleared away, about sixty adults and children celebrated Mass with their pastor. In 1858 a frame church was built at 27th and Prairie Avenue. By 1879 a growing congregation necessitated the planning for a larger place of worship. With church members settling increasingly in the city's western and southern sections (following the pattern of the general population after the Chicago fire), a decision was made to construct the new church near the corner of 29th and Wabash Avenue.

The Place of Worship
Architect Patrick C. Keely was chosen to plan the new church building. A designer of over 600 churches in America (including Chicago's Holy Name Cathedral and St. Patrick Cathedral in New York), Keely had been named the "Patriarch of United States Roman Catholic Architecture" by the MacMillan Encyclopedia of Architecture. The Neo-Gothic structure he created for St. James ultimately added to his reputation -- for years to come his colleagues would refer to St. James as Keely's "acheivement in art."

The interior reflected a combination of great size (seating capacity of 1,100) people with a sense of intimacy -- altars of white carrara marble; their railings of the tinted onyx and the fire-gilt bronze; stations of the cross of Munich cut stone; Tiffany windows; in the choir loft, a Roosevelt tracker pneumatic organ, one of the few such instruments in the United States.

The exterior, including spire turrets, was built from sandstone quarried in Illinois. In 1895 a carillon of twenty bells of twenty bells was brought from the east cost hung within the spire -- the largest bell weighing 5,000 pounds; the smallest 100; their chimes capable of being heard from a distance of eight miles.

The church was dedicated on May 24, 1880. On May 26, 1895, St. James was solemnly consecrated by Archbishop Patrick A. Feehan as "a temple of God for all time," the third church so consecrated in the United States. In honor of the occasion, the twenty bells of the carillon were rung for the first time.

The Test of Strength
Three days before Christmas in 1972, the St. James neighborhood woke to the shouts of "The church is on fire." With the fire raging for eight hours, the original consensus was that the building was ruined beyond repair. Indeed, the sanctuary was gutted; destroyed were the altars, the Tiffany windows above them, and the sacristy.

However, over the next few years the community responded magnificently -- from removing vast amounts of debris in the burned-out area to refinishing pews, cleaning smoke-blackened marble, and assisting in raising the funds for reconstruction (including the restoration of the carillion and the organ).

While alterations needed to be made to the interior layout, the traditional stateliness and spirit of St. James was faithfully preserved. More importantly, on May 17, 1976, at the concelebrated Liturgy of Rededication of the church, it was apparent to all that St. James had lost none of its intimacy, friendliness, or vitality.

An Enduring Mission
From its beginning St. James has demonstrated a mission centering on the spiritual, educational, and physical needs of all its neighbors.

In the early 1880s the parish experienced firsthand the ramifications of the Civil War. During a two-year period from 1864 to 1866 the pastor, Joseph R. Murphy, served as chaplain to the confederate prisoners interned at Camp Douglas, located at nearby 35th and Cottage Grove. Records indicate that he administered the sacraments of baptism and extreme unction to more than 250 internees. In church archives one finds such entries as "Bartholomew Server, rebel prisoner, age 22 years, belonging to the 54 Virginia Regiment."

By the 1880s the focus had turned to education. St. James, in 1884, moved it two-room elementary school run by the Sisters of Mercy out of the church basement and into a new building just north of the church, thus raising the enrollment to 400 students; in 1890 it opened a high school for girls (on of the first in the city), turning it coed in 1905; in 1902 the Sisters developed a business college.

Throughout the decades of the twentieth century St. James has been witness to and affected by changes in the community demographics. Whatever issues have accompanied this reflection of the city's urban social movements, the parish always has responded readily to the individual and the community. Over the years such response has taken many forms.

In the 1920s and '30s St. James attended extensively to the spiritual needs of patients in the neighborhood's eight hospitals. The parish also oversaw the successful transfer of both high school and the business college to a larger south side facility.

In the 1940s the church and school staff initiated (considered a bold move) the policy of opening the elementary school to children of all faiths and races.

In the 1950s and '60s, as the parish and school became predominantly African American, St. James led the community toward appreciating its diversity and encouraged the people to work toward providing equality for all. In 1969 the city's first African American pastor was appointed to St. James.

From the 1970s through 1990s the church developed the campus ministry at the Illinois Institute of Technology as well as the hospital ministry at Michael Reese; it created the social care ministries that provide compassionate support while providing individuals with the means for creating better lives for themselves and their families.

With this strong tradition of community involvement and innovative response to human needs -- with a dynamic parish, a vital grammar school, an effective social care program -- St. James stands today as a sign to the community that God does, indeed, move among His people and make His presence felt.