It Occurred Right here: Yakima’s St. Paul’s Cathedral primarily based on the Mission Dolores in San Francisco | Occurred

For 108 years, St. Paul Cathedral has been a spiritual home for many Yakima residents, as well as the seat of the Catholic Church in Central Washington for most of that time.

“We’re small when compared with the great cathedrals of the world, but we have the same services of all the big cathedrals,” said Monsignor John Ecker, the pastor and vicar general of the cathedral. Ecker has spent most of his career as a priest at the cathedral.

The Catholic Church has deep roots in the Valley, going back to the late 1840s when the first Catholic missionaries came into the Valley at the invitation of Yakama Chief Owhi. Those priests would establish the St. Joseph Mission near Ahtanum Creek in 1852.

St Paul Parish was established in March 1914 to meet the needs of Yakima’s growing population. The Rev. Robert Armstrong celebrated the first Mass for the new congregation March 19, 1914, in the chapel at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital — which would later become Astria Regional Medical Center — with 200 people in attendance.

But the parish was going to need a new home, and the Diocese of Seattle purchased 5 acres between West Chestnut and Walnut streets between South 12th and South 14th avenues from DE Lesh. The land would be used for a church, school and rectory.

A San Francisco native, Armstrong wanted the church to be done in the Spanish Mission style, using the Mission Dolores in Armstrong’s native San Francisco as inspiration.

John Maloney, who would later go on to design the iconic AE Larson Building in downtown Yakima, was hired to draw up plans for the new church building. Maloney’s design incorporated the mission style, as well as symbolic sculpture on the building related to both its namesake as well as Central Washington.

Two of the four columns on the front portico of the church depict the crops grown in the Yakima Valley — apples, corn, grapes, peaches, pears, tomatoes and wheat — while columns near the side are a stylized representation of the Columbia River.

St. Paul appears twice on the front of the church. Once, in the niche above the portico alongside Mary and the Christ Child with St. Peter, and again in a statue on the top of east façade of the building. Other features include Michael the Archangel and symbolic representations of the writers of the four Gospels, Sts. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

The church’s 125-foot tower plays Westminster chimes to mark the time during the day. Its blue dome is decorated with a variety of liturgical crosses.

The church’s nave is laid out in the form of a cross, with the altar under an apse.

Church leaders broke ground for the cathedral on Feb. 8, 1926, and the first Easter Mass was celebrated April 18, 1927, in the still-unfinished building.

As the population and the church community grew in the region, it needed a new diocese. On July 18, 1951, Pope Pius XII created the Diocese of Yakima, which would serve Central Washington. St. Paul was then designated the diocese’s cathedral, with the bishop’s chair — the cathedra — installed in the sanctuary.

Other changes followed, including increasing the seating capacity from 600 to 800, and taking out four windows to install new confessionals. The flooring was replaced with terrazzo, and new oak pews were installed.

In 1955, a baptistry, sacristy and what is now the Cathedral Chapel were added to the building. The included chapel stained glass windows created by Gabriel Loire, a stained-glass artist from Chartres, France.

Ecker, a newly ordained priest, first came to the cathedral in 1958 as an associate pastor, and would become rector and pastor of the church. Ecker would celebrate a requiem Mass at the cathedral for President John F. Kennedy after the president was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.

Ecker left St. Paul that year, but came back in 1988 as its pastor and has been there since.

In 1981, changes were made to the church’s interior to bring it in line with the Vatican II Council’s changes in how Mass is celebrated. Green marble from the floor of the original altar was recycled into the base of the Forgiveness Fountain outside the cathedral.

Through the 1980s, other changes were made, such as the installation of a stained-glass rose window in the choir and a window depicting La Virgen de Guadalupe in the Cathedral Chapel. In 1998, a Spanish-language Mass was added, reflecting the changing demographics of St. Paul congregation.

In November 2004, someone set a fire in the chapel. Firefighters were able to contain the fire to the chapel by cutting holes in the roof to vent the smoke away from the main cathedral. The fire and water destroyed the chapel’s organ and furniture and scorched the La Virgen window. But the damage was repaired, with a new altar and a 1920 pipe organ from a church in Florida joining the two pipe organs in the cathedral, in the chapel.

Music is an important part of the cathedral’s life. In addition to the cathedral’s own choir, St. Paul has hosted performances by choirs from Washington State University, Central Washington University, Pacific Lutheran University and the Yakima Valley Symphony Chorus.

Today, the cathedral’s congregation consists of 1,800 families.

“I think it’s a great place to worship,” Ecker said.