Description
The Nativity of Our Lord parish was founded in 1868 to serve the area near the Union Stockyards. This area was heavily Irish Catholic due to the large number of unskilled immigrants entering Chicago to work first digging the canal, then in the stockyards, particularly in meatpacking. Its first pastors were full-blood Irish. On the land purchased for the church stood a stable which was moved and converted into the first church building. This stable is integral to the mythology of the Nativity of Our Lord church, a reminder of Bethlehem, the origin of the Catholic faith, serving as the origin of the church.
The first cornerstone of the building as it stands today was laid in 1876. It was designed by Patrick Keely, an Irish-born architect who designed and built hundreds of churches for the Catholic faith during his career. The church is a simple basilica plan in a historicist, romanesque style.The church has undergone a long series of additions and renovations, holding now the church building, a rectory, and school, and a convent. Changes have been made to the interiors on several occasions, including the addition of nearly 200 stained glass windows in the early 1900s.
Despite the discrimination faced by immigrants, and particularly Irish immigrants for many of the years the church was in operation, the Irish Catholics served by Nativity of our lord persisted in its own discrimination perpetrated against other immigrants of non-white races. Its 50th anniversary commemorative booklet in 1919 even touts its purity, praising the lack of colored help in its erection. However, as time has progressed, the church has become more integrated, including a range of ethnicities, with the irish now holding a much smaller proportion of the congregation.
Source
Koenig, Harry C. ed., “Nativity of Our Lord,” in Harry Koenig, ed., A History of the Parishes of
the Archdiocese of Chicago, Vol. 1 (Chicago: The Archdioceses of Chicago, 1980):
654-649.
Nativity of Our Lord 50th 1919. Archives of the Archdiocese of Chicago.
