Saint Joseph Old Cathedral: The Oklahoma City Church That Endured

Saint Joseph Old Cathedral: The Oklahoma City Church That Endured

By:  a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures

Dear Henry,

On the corner of NW 4th Street and Harvey Avenue in Oklahoma City stands a cathedral with an incredible story. Let me tell you all about Saint Joseph Old Cathedral.

The story of Old Saint Joseph begins almost as soon as Oklahoma City itself began. After the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889, the prairie turned into a tent city within hours, and the area's first Catholics began doing what frontier Catholics have always done: finding a place to pray.

In those early days, Mass was held wherever space could be found, including tents and rough wooden structures. The first small church served the growing Catholic community for several years, but Oklahoma City was not interested in staying small. By the turn of the twentieth century, the parish had outgrown its first building, and in 1901, work began on a much larger brick church. That new church, built in the Gothic Revival style, was not just practical. It was a declaration.

Oklahoma City may have begun in dust, canvas, and land claims, but the people who settled there were already building for permanence. Under the leadership of Father Ildephonse Lanslots, O.S.B., and with brick-and-mortar work later subcontracted to Robert Krueger, Saint Joseph's rose into the skyline of a city still becoming itself. The new church was dedicated on December 18, 1904, and in 1905, when the Diocese of Oklahoma was established, Saint Joseph became Oklahoma's first cathedral.

It is a fitting patronage, even if I have not found a neat explanation for why Saint Joseph was chosen. Joseph is the quiet worker, the guardian, the man who builds and protects without needing center stage. For a young Catholic parish on the edge of a raw new city, that seems about right.

Oklahoma City kept growing. Statehood came in 1907, and in the decades that followed, the city became a center of commerce, transportation, government, and oil. The oil discovery in Oklahoma City in 1928 brought another boom. By the 1930s, the Catholic population had grown enough that the Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help became the diocesan cathedral. Saint Joseph remained downtown, the Old Cathedral, no longer the official seat but still very much alive.

And then came April 19, 1995.

That morning, a truck bomb exploded outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, just across from Saint Joseph Old Cathedral. The blast killed 168 people, including 19 children, and injured hundreds more. It was an act of evil that tore through Oklahoma City and marked the country. Saint Joseph was not spared.

The explosion blew out stained-glass windows, damaged the organ, shattered plaster, and lifted the roof several inches off its supports. The old parish rectory was damaged beyond saving and later had to be demolished. Thankfully, the few people inside the cathedral at the time were in the basement and unharmed.

In the aftermath, Saint Joseph and its grounds became part of the response. Rescue workers, volunteers, clergy, survivors, and grieving people moved through the space. A building that had begun as a place of sanctuary in a frontier town became, once again, a place of refuge in a wounded city.

Today, the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum stands across the street, preserving the memory of those who were killed, those who survived, the rescuers, and everyone changed by that terrible morning. But Saint Joseph Old Cathedral does not hide its own wound either.

In May 1997, after the cathedral had been restored, a statue called "And Jesus Wept" was dedicated on the site of the demolished rectory. Made of Italian marble, the statue shows Christ with His face in His hand, turned away from the place where the Murrah Building once stood.

The name comes from the shortest verse in Scripture, spoken when Jesus wept at the tomb of His friend Lazarus. Here, outside Saint Joseph Old Cathedral, it becomes a witness to the lives lost in Oklahoma City: the workers, the visitors, the rescuers, the parents, the children, and the infants whose absence still echoes across that ground.

I visited Saint Joseph Old Cathedral in June of 2021, during a trip to the Oklahoma City National Memorial. I had hoped to attend Mass there, but an emergency called the priest away, and Mass was canceled. I remember feeling disappointed. I had wanted the full experience: the liturgy, the prayers, the rhythm of the Church in that historic space. Instead, I walked into a quiet cathedral.

For a long time, I thought of that visit as unfinished. I always meant to go back and attend Mass properly. Maybe someday I will. But now, looking back, I wonder if that quiet visit was its own kind of encounter.

Saint Joseph Old Cathedral is not a historical tomb. It is still a parish, still offering the sacraments, still standing in the middle of Oklahoma City. It began with frontier Catholics gathering for Mass in a tent, became the first cathedral in Oklahoma, survived a bombing, and remains a place of prayer.

Some places do not need to shout their history. They simply endure. And Saint Joseph Old Cathedral is one of those places.

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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life

She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.

You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.

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