St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral
c. 1857 • 700 Poplar
St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral was founded by the first Bishop of Tennessee, James Harvey Otey, and the women of the Calvary Episcopal Church in 1857. The first structure was a small, wooden Gothic building, and has slowly been renovated into the modified English Gothic mansion it is today. In 1873, the Five Sisters of Order of St. Mary established a school for girls, which becomes the St. Mary’s School for Girls. The sisters remain in Memphis to nurse the sick, help the poor, and care for children in the Church Home, and orphanage founded by St. Mary’s. All of the sisters except Sister Hughetta lost their lives to yellow fever while caring for the children of the Church Home. After Sister Hughetta’s death, her brother Col. Robert Bogardus Snowden erects the Sisters Chapel in honor of their mother.
During the Civil Rights movement, Dean Dimmick initiated the first meeting of the Downtown Churches Association in 1967. This became the first ecumenical group of its kind with both Black and White members. The Downtown Churches Association representatives of Memphis laborers hold meetings at the Cathedral in an attempt to end the crisis.
In 2023, the Cathedral embarked on a renovation project to restore the historic bell tower, roof, and interior of the building.
Copy Source: With gratitude to Perre M. Magness, author of the book Good Abode, for portions of this narrative.