St. Mark's Protestant Episcopal Church, Minneapolis

Founded in 1858 by Gethsemane P. E. Church as a mission, the congregation first met in a wooden building at Washinton and 22nd Avenue North, on a lot donated by Captain J. C. Reno. The building was moved in 1863 to a lot donated by H. T. Welles and Franklin Steele at the corner of Hennepin Avenue and 4th Street. Although sources vary, the congregation was likely incorporated in 1868 (The WPA report states that the congregation was incorporated on June 19, 1868. Atwater concurs that incorporation occurred in 1868.  The current website, however, records incorporation in 1863). On December 25, 1870, the congregation moved to a new stone church it had erected on 6th Street, where it remained until April 19, 1908, at which time it temporarily moved the services to the Handicraft Build Hall at 89 10th Street South while it erected a monumental church at the present location of 519 Oak Grove Street near Loring Park. This building, which remains extant, was designed by architect and parish member Edwin Hawley Hewitt, in the neo-Gothic style. The congregation held its first services in the new church on September 29, 1910, although it held services in the previously completed Parish House from September 28, 1908. By 1915, the congregation boasted over 1000 members.  In 1941, the church has designated a cathedral.

The congregation sponsored an Industrial School, headed by Mrs. T. B. Wells, along with a Sunday School, evening church, and summer camps.  In 1906, the Wells Memorial Settlement House was founded. St. Paul's Protestant Episcopal Church split from this congregation on June 1, 1880.