5/2/2011:
For the late 19th century churches of North Dakota, meeting the religious needs of a growing population spread across 70,000 square miles presented many challenges. Some areas lacked a building; others a minister. But one Episcopal bishop, William Walker, came up with a unique solution: a portable church. Why expend limited resources erecting churches in towns before their stability was assured, when a railcar could easily serve anywhere in the state along the hundreds of miles of railroad track?
By 1890, Bishop Walker had raised the necessary funds, and his unusual chapel, dubbed the Church of the Advent, the Cathedral Car of North Dakota, and was heading for the northern plains.
Constructed by Pullman’s Palace Car Company, the sixty-foot-long church was simple, but beautiful. The railcar was designed around a “transept plan.” According to Harper Weekly, “in the centre of the exterior on either side is an elevation with sunken panels to give it some degree the cathedral appearance.” Finished in oak and equipped with a cabinet organ, the room could hold up to eighty portable chairs. A small separate room in the rear would serve as vestry and bedroom.
As Bishop Walker tended his widely scattered flock, the chapel car soon became a familiar site from the Red River Valley to the Montana border. Wherever the car traveled, it drew large crowds. Rarely did it fail to fill to capacity. Walker knew it was more than the services that attracted attendees. At one stop, a farmer told the bishop, “I’ve been to a good many circuses, and I’ve seen the grandest exhibitions that have come west; but this is the biggest show yet.” Although some attended simply out of curiosity alone, Walker was pleased. He recognized that the unusual church attracted many for whom ordinary churches had little appeal. In particular, the Cathedral Car was popular with railroad workers. Unreached by ordinary church measures, Walker reported that these men heartily joined in the service because they felt right at home in a railcar and regarded their uniforms and working clothes as perfectly suitable attire in such a setting.
Seven years after the railcar’s construction, Bishop Walker left North Dakota to serve other missions needs until his death on this date in 1917. With Walker’s departure, the Cathedral Car of North Dakota saw limited use. It was sold in 1901.
Dakota Datebook written by Christina Sunwall
Sources:
Taylor, Wilma Rugh and Norman Thomas Taylor. This Train is Bound For Glory: The Story of America’s Chapel Cars. Online version, 2010. Retrieved April 1, 2011 from <http://www.chapelcars.com/online_book/>
Wilkins, Robert P. and Wynona H. Wilkins. God Giveth the Increase: The History of the Episcopal Church in North Dakota. Fargo: North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies, 1959.