Campustown: A Brief History of the First West Ames by Capps Anthony

Author:Capps, Anthony [Capps, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2016-11-07T05:00:00+00:00

ST . JOHN ’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH BY THE CAMPUS

St. John’s Episcopal Church by the Campus traces its roots back to 1876. Organized as Trinity Mission, the church changed its name to St. John’s in 1893. The church’s first home, finished in 1899, was at Fifth and Clark Streets, though the building did move once when the city needed to make room for a new school. In 1919, the church bought land, which included a house, in Campustown at the southeast corner of Lincoln Way and Stanton Avenue. The house served as a rectory (the Episcopal version of a parsonage) and student center for the next decade. In September 1929, the old house, built in the early 1900s, closed to make way for the new church. The completed building was dedicated on May 4, 1930. The Great Depression soon put pains on the church to pay off the mortgage, but the story goes that even the children of the parish were contributing their pennies to prevent a foreclosure. It worked. A house to the south at 116 Stanton Avenue, built in 1911, was purchased in the early 1960s and called the Canterbury House. It became the new student center and was torn down in the mid-1990s; the church parking lot is now on the site.

For the first several years, worship service was conducted by neighboring ministers. The church didn’t have a rector of its own until 1919, when Father LeRoy Burroughs arrived. He remained at the church for forty-two years. There have only been two others since him: Paul Goodland, who served from 1961 to 1991, and Al Aiton, who has served since 1991.

For more than thirty years (1964–96), the Episcopal Parish of Ames comprised two churches: St. David’s and St. John’s. The congregation of St. David’s, which began in 1964, first met at Stevens Funeral Home and then at Northminster Presbyterian Church. In 1974, St. David’s completed its church building, which is at the current site of Windsor Oaks on Adams Street. The two congregations rejoined in 1996. Located under the skylight and at the fireplace hearth, the Gathering Area is dedicated to the St. David’s congregation. In 1995, St. John’s undertook an extensive (and much-needed) renovation of the building and helped create some necessary space.

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