St. Paul was founded in 1848 by father Joseph Ferneding, who was previously a pastor at Old St. Mary’s. At the time of its dedication in 1850, then known by its original name of St. Paulus Kirche, it was the ninth Catholic church in Cincinnati, and the seventh erected by German Catholics. By the mid 1890s St. Paul had grown to have one of the largest congregations in Cincinnati with more than 1000 member families. In 1893, one parishioner donated an F.X. Zettler stained-glass window entitled “The Marriage Feast of Cana” which had previously won a prize at the Chicago World’s Fair. Another Zettler work entitled “The Ascension of Our Lord” was acquired in 1895.
Unfortunately, in 1899, a fire gutted the church. However, reconstruction was fast, and the church was rededicated in October of 1900. Eventually, though, the decline of the church’s surrounding neighborhood diminished the congregation size until finally, in 1974, the church was closed. Since then, it has gone through a number of owners, and finally was bought by the city itself, who sold the building to the Verdin company for a mere $10. Verdin, which makes and sells church bells and other religious products, spent approximately $1 million in renovations for the building, which they now use as their “Church Mart,” a showroom for their wares.
Bibliographical Sources:
The Bicentennial Guide to Greater Cincinnati: A Portrait of Two Hundred Years, by Geoffrey J. Giglierano, Deborah A. Overmeyer, with Frederic L. Propas, The Cincinnati Historical Society, 1988, page 96
