Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church Complex

The Holy Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church is historically significant as the home of one of Detroit's oldest German Lutheran congregations and as the 'mother' church of Missouri-Synod Lutheranism in the city. The church also has architectural importance as a notable Neo-Gothic church designed by William Edgerton N. Hunter (1858-1947), a Detroit architect who specialized in the design of religious buildings between 1910 and 1939. Trinity is also notable for the fine carved and painted decoration and stained glass with which it is embellished. German migration to Detroit increased dramatically in the score years following 1830. The new arrivals settled on the lower east and northeast sides of the city and found work as laborers, brewers, merchants and tanners. By 1850, the area north of Jefferson Avenue and along the Gratiot corridor was widely known as Germantown. Trinity Church originated with a dispute within St. Matthew's Evangelical Lutheran Church, Detroit's second German-language church, which had been formed in 1845. In 1850 the expulsion of a member of St. Matthew's by the pastor without congregational consent led to the withdrawal of seventeen members. These protesters founded Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church. On November 10, 1850, the new church installed the Reverend Gottlieb Schaller of Baltimore as its first pastor. Services were first held in a frame building which the congregation purchased for $200, moved, and rebuilt. In 1865 the congregation bought a lot at the northeast corner of Gratiot and Rivard, and constructed a Gothic church of brick at a total cost of $13,500. In 1927, a three-story brick parish house, designed by Detroit architect Bernard C. Wetzel, was built immediately east of the 1866 church. Then, on Christmas Eve, 1928, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Gauss announced their intention to donate a new stone church to their congregation. The cornerstone of the new structure was laid on Thanksgiving Day, 1929, and the completed church dedicated on February 15, 1931. The structure cost in excess of $400,000. The church was designed by W. E. N. Hunter of Detroit and constructed under the supervision of the Otto Misch Company of Detroit as general contractors.

The Trinity Lutheran Church Complex in Detroit is an imposing Neo-Gothic church building fashioned of vari-colored granite and Indiana limestone, with an attached, brick, Tudor-style parish house, sited on a cramped, triangular plot at the edge of downtown Detroit. A modern rendition of English sixteenth-century Gothic, the church was designed by William Edgerton N. Hunter of Detroit and completed in 1931. The church complex is located on the northeast corner of Gratiot Avenue and Rivard Street, one block east of the I-75 Freeway (north). Forty by one hundred feet in plan and sixty-five feet in height, the church itself has a tall, narrow nave; low side aisles; and an asymmetrically placed, 104-foot high, square bell tower. The church rests on a stone foundation and is constructed of granite with limestone trimmings and sculpture. The roof is clad in slate. Facing southwest, the church's gabled, main facade contains a centrally positioned, recessed, Tudor-arch entrance--capped by a relief of Moses, Aaron, and Hur in the center and figures of the Prodigal Son and the Woman of Canaan to its right and left--and, above it, a broad and high, traceried, Gothic window. The entrance portal is flanked by piers topped by lead figures of the Evangelists set into niches in the gables with which the piers are crowned. The front gable contains a relief of the Calvary scene. Dominating the church's facade is the 104-foot high, square tower. Three of the tower's pinnacles display carved pelicans (symbolic of Christ's sacrifice) and on the tower's front are representations of defenders of the faith from all ages. In plan the church consists of a broad narthex, narrow and high nave flanked by shallow and low aisles, and a recessed chancel and sanctuary area. Above the narthex is the choir, containing the organ console, and, on either side of the nave, above the aisles and directly below the stained glass, Gothic windows which pierce the side walls, is a triforium level. The interior walls are finished in light-colored brick, the floors in slate, and the columns, arches, mouldings, and door and window trim in smooth-face limestone. The structure's roof is supported by a system of open-timber, hammer beam trusses and the ceiling is painted blue. The church's fittings include many fine examples of early twentieth-century woodwork, stonecarving, metal craft, and stained glass. The focal point of the interior is the chancel. It has a marble pulpit--carved with the cross and sculptures of Old and New Testament figures--font, and altar. The altar's oak reredos is a three-level structure containing at the bottom a painting of the miracle of Pentecost, at middle height a representation of Christ surrounded by prophets and kings who bore witness to Him, and at the top figures of the disciples. Symbols of Christ's Passion decorate the sides or edges of the reredos and the three interlocking circles, the symbol of the Trinity, decorate the top. The interior walls of the nave contain much sculpture executed in limestone, including a frieze atop the clerestory--composed of symbols of Christ and the disciples unified by a vine motif--and representations of clerical and lay figures of Lutheran history. The church's elaborate woodwork includes an intricately carved screen which, separating narthex from nave, contains panels displaying groups of figures and scenes from the Old and New Testaments. The wooden organ screen, located next to the choir in the north wall, contains carved figures of musicians from history as well as past organists of Trinity Church.