jan 2, 1884 - St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church

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In 1884, the Most Reverend Louis M. Fink, Bishop of Leaveworth, dispatched the Rev. Thomas D. Moore, first pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle in Armourdale, to start a mission in Argentine. St. John the Evangelist parish was formally organized two years later in a modest wooden church whose framework was barely completed at the time of a major tornado. The present structure was constructed between 1889 and 1907. Like St. Thomas the Apostle in Armourdale, the congregation was originally housed in a basement church built in 1889, which served local mill hands and railroad workers for thirteen years. The 1903 flood collapsed the roof of the basement church, but the Archdiocese began efforts in 1904 to construct a new sanctuary of stone quarried from the hills near Argentine. The new Romanesque rock church, built at a cost of $45,000 atop the basement church foundation, was dedicated on Labor Day 1907. Because of anti-Mexican prejudice by white families at St. John the Evangelist, St. John the Divine Parish, was established to serve Mexican American parishioners in Argentine. A separate school for Mexican children was also established. St. John the Divine was closed in 1992, and the congregation was merged with St. John the Evangelist which now serves mostly Mexican immigrant and Mexican American families. https://www.historickansascity.org/historic/st-john-the-divine/ The parishes of St. John the Evangelist and Sacred Heart Catholic Church were canonically joined in 2007 and became Our Lady of Unity Parish. Each church remains in operation but is served by a single pastor. In addition to the sanctuary, the site includes a parsonage, convent, and former parish school. The parsonage replaced a rectory severely damaged by the 1951 Flood. The convent, constructed in 1930 at a cost of $10,500, is of dark brick clad with a tile roof, and is trimmed with Carthage stone. The interior of the eleven-room structure is finished in oak. The parish school was built in 1940 at a cost of $40,000 and replaced a two-story stone structure from 1895. The school was sold in the early 1990s to El Centro, Inc., and underwent a major renovation in 2002. Today it houses El Centro’s Academy for Children, an accredited dual-language early childhood education program. Source: https://khri.kansasgis.org/

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