History
Using the same hand tools that were used to build ships, local residents built St. Peter’s in 1883. The first service was held in April 1884 at the original location on Beacon Street, between 2nd and 3rd Street, on what was then Nob Hill. The church was designed in the Carpenter Gothic style of Victorian architecture, and measured only 21 feet by 60 feet. It has 110 hand-hewn pews, plain white walls, and a lectern supported by an angel carved out of redwood. The furnishings and paneling were made of redwood brought from Northern California on sailing vessels. In a profile of the church published in 1968, the Los Angeles Times described the old church as looking "like a dollhouse," but "with the rough-hewn charm of a 19th century ship."
Until approximately 1900, the church was used for both Catholic and Protestant services. Its steeple was lighted at night with a lantern, and from its location on Nob Hill, it served as a beacon for ships approaching the port. In 1904, St. Peter’s was moved to Tenth and Mesa Streets in the Vinegar Hill section of San Pedro. The steeple fell off in the move to Vinegar Hill and was replaced with a belfry the still exists.
Read more about this topic: Old St. Peter's Episcopal Church
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“There is a history in all men’s lives,
Figuring the natures of the times deceased,
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)