The French immigrants who settled around 14th and Girard Avenue North established a parish in 1884, St. Clothilde, the fifth oldest Catholic parish in Minneapolis. It was a division of the French parish of Notre Dame (Our Lady of Lourdes) and was intended to serve French Catholics on the west side of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. Prior to the construction of its own church in 1887, the parish worshipped in the old Fourth Baptist Church that had been empty for two years. The Baptists had moved into a new church at 18th and Dupont Avenue North. This is one of many instances where a house of worship erected for one denomination finds new life with another, a practice that becomes increasingly common as the city’s neighborhoods underwent rapid change. Located on the corner of Lyndale Avenue and 11th Street North, St. Clothilde French Catholic Church was dedicated on December 30, 1887, by Bishop John Ireland speaking in French. The church built of brick and stone measured 100 feet long by 50 feet wide and could seat around 600 people. At the time, the parish numbered 300 families. An enormous fire that totally destroyed the New Central Market (“the Pride of Minneapolis” built by Harlow Gale) was the headline of the Minneapolis Tribune on July 20, 1894. Buried at the end of the article was a brief notice, “St. Clothilde Church Burned.” It went on to report that all of the church’s ritual objects and vestments were destroyed, and only half of the loss was covered by insurance. Four days later another article was published announcing the church would be rebuilt in wood rather than brick and stone. Insurance, it was noted, would not cover all costs so parishioners would have to make up the difference, “many of whom are well-to-do working men, though none of them are wealthy” (Minneapolis Tribune, 7/24/1894). However, four years later the name of the parish was changed to St. Anne and moved to 26th and Queen Avenue North, due to “financial difficulties, caused by the exodus of the French families to other sections of the city” (Church of St. Anne Dedication Booklet, p. 8). One respondent recalls that several French families still living in the neighborhood went to St. Joseph’s, but never quite fit in. He recalls his German grandmother remarking they didn’t know how to prepare the “traditional food.”