St. Agnes Parish at E. 79th and Euclid: A landmark lost before its time

Today, a stately bell tower is all that's left of St. Agnes Parish, a Romanesque stone church that stood on Euclid Ave. between E. 79th and E. 81st Streets in Cleveland from 1914-1975. When it was built, it served the growing number of middle-class and upper-middle-class Catholics in the Fairfax and Hough neighborhoods, including Irish and German immigrant families like my grandfather's. As whites fled and Black families filled up the neighborhood, St. Agnes served the growing Black community, until finally it succumbed to decay and neglect. 

In the late 19th century, a group of Catholic women in Hough petitioned the bishop to establish a parish at this location to serve the growing number of German and Irish families. The church was started in 1893 and the school and original church building opened in 1894. Church leaders broke ground for the stone church building in 1914. Its stature shows the wealth and size of Cleveland at the time. St. Agnes was built of heavy Bedford stone and had three imposing recessed doorways on the facade. Photos show tall, heavy, ornate metal entry doors. There's a huge circular rose window above the doorway, a clay tile roof, and impressive stonework including a cross high atop the building. The bell tower is next to the church. Based on the photo above, there's a large home to the west, and what looks to be an even larger building behind that. 

My grandfather, Lee Alfred Chilcote, who I'm named after, walked to school at St. Agnes every day when he was growing up. He was born in 1907 and his family lived on E. 80th St. south of Cedar until 1918 when they moved to Cleveland Heights. He writes about St. Agnes, where he was confirmed and where he was also an altar boy, “I was a Catholic until I was 11 years old, and I went to St. Agnes Church and had my first Communion and Confirmation there. At that time, Father Jennings was the Pastor. He was quite a man. St. Agnes was located at 79th and Euclid Avenue. I can still see it, it was made of a somber-looking Ohio stone, big blocks, built like a fort. It is torn down now. Those nuns were very, very strict and they used to carry big straps on their belts at the time, and if you didn’t behave you got a big whack. There was no question about disciplining children in those days.”

In the photo above, taken in the 1910s or 1920s around the time my grandfather went there, I'm struck by how young the tree is, the brick street with streetcar tracks on Euclid Ave., and what looks to be a welcoming plaza in front of the church. Based on photos which I found with the help of folks at Cleveland Public Library, upper Euclid Ave. changed dramatically from 1900 to 1920, from a quiet, sleepy street that horse-drawn carriages clopped down to a bustling thoroughfare filled with streetcars and, beginning in the 1910s, motorcars. Euclid Ave. in Fairfax currently lacks any sense of place, because it's so chopped up by different uses, with the few remaining older buildings set close to the street and others, like the CVS, out of context. I'm also struck by the imposing brick house to the west of the church, which is probably only 10 feet away from St. Agnes in a density typical of the time, and I wonder if it wasn't the home of the St. Agnes priest. 

St. Agnes originally represented the growing strength and influence of Catholics in Cleveland, but it adapted to the changing neighborhood and served Black families who moved into the neighborhood after the Depression and World War II, according to Cleveland Historical. However, the school closed in 1970 and the parish struggled. One of the reasons for the closure, according to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, was the decline of the neighborhood overall following the Hough Riots of 1966 (also called the Hough Uprising), when a Black man was refused a glass of water by a white bar owner, leading to dayslong riots. In the ensuing protests, four Black people were killed, 50 were injured, and the National Guard was eventually called in to quell the violence. St. Agnes later merged with Our Lady of Fatima in Hough, and the church was torn down in 1975 (check out this piece by Tom Matowitz about its demise). As for me, I doubt the Hough Riots directly led to the closing of St. Agnes, which could be seen as akin to blaming the neighborhood for the church's shuttering, instead of the Catholic diocese that decided to close it. I'm going to try to dig into this in my research. 

This week, I visited the church site and walked around a very depressing, forlorn patch of land at E. 81st St. and Euclid Ave. in Fairfax. On the corner where the church once stood, there's a CVS with a parking lot facing Euclid Ave. The church tower to the east, which looks to be about five stories tall, is still standing, but it's slipping into decay with holes around the foundation and vines creeping up the stone. The empty lot around it is fenced off with orange construction fencing, and the property is for sale with a big sign out front. There's a cell tower in the rear of the property (it's not the same as the bell tower, although that would be neat). According to property records, the church site was owned by the diocese until 1982, when it was transferred into private hands. The CVS was developed around 2007, but the bell tower site is owned by Good Karma Broadcasting and its only use appears to be the cell tower. I'll post more here as I learn more in the coming months (if you have info or tips, you can reach me at [email protected]).