Saint Mark's Episcopal Church: 150 Years of Ministry in Downtown San Antonio, 1858-2008

How a new congregation of 40 Episcopalians struggling against general rowdiness in an isolated frontier outpost of 8,000 inhabitants had the daring to commission Richard Upjohn, the nation s leading church architect, to design their church and then to build it is the start of one of the stories that makes San Antonio such an unusual place. Even the first members caught their breath once the church was finally finished. Fully aware that their new edifice could not match the elegant and costly decorations of the churches in our Eastern cities, one writer nevertheless admitted to a feeling of local pride . . . that old San Antonio, in the wilderness as she is, and almost out of the world as she is thought to be, should possess such a church.

As various denominations worked to establish churches in San Antonio, missionaries were able to form an Episopal church in town in 1850, but it was another eight years before their efforts bore lasting fruit with St. Mark s. Robert E. Lee and other Episcopalians in the U.S. Army helped keep things going. St. Mark s became one of the major churches in San Antonio and in the Episcopal Church as well. Among its landmark events was the wedding of future President Lyndon B. Johnson and Lady Bird Taylor in 1934. St. Mark s produced a profusion of bishops as it endured and thrived even as downtown churches elswhere were having difficult times.

This book, laced with color illustrations, succinctly recounts 150 years of struggles and triumphs in a significant congregation s remarkable journey.