The secret story of chapels on the railroad in the 20th century
At one point, thousands of rural American Christians could access church services that arrived weekly by train.
The invention and development of the railroad network in the late 19th century contributed greatly to America’s expansion. As each segment of the great American railway was built, cities emerged in locations that were previously scarcely inhabited. This new mode of transportation not only transformed America’s landscape, it also changed the way people could attend church services.
Suddenly, rail networks enabled Catholics living in isolated locations to travel to bigger cities to attend church, and some pioneering priests took it a step further. To ensure that people living even in the most out-of-the-way locations could attend Mass, they created “railroad chapels.”
As Wilma Taylor and Norman Taylor explained in the article “The Story of Americas Chapel Cars,” published in the journal Railroad History and cited by Jstor Daily, these railroad chapels moved from town to town to provide church services to communities that were too small to have a dedicated place of worship.
The Episcopal Church built the first “railroad chapel” in 1890 and was soon followed by similar projects from different denominations. It is estimated that at least 13 railroad chapels were traveling on trains across America between 1890 and 1946 to provide church services to rural believers. These mobile churches did not have to pay passage fees thanks to a special agreement with the Northern Pacific Railroad that allowed railroad chapels to roam the US for free, making it financially viable for small congregations to keep operations running.
As Taylor and Taylor reported, Francis Clement Kelley, a Catholic priest who learned about railroad chapels at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904, started the first Catholic railroad chapel. With knowledge of this new clever way to provide church services to rural people, Kelley ordered the purchase of a used railroad car from Chicago. The first Catholic railroad chapel, called “St. Anthony,” was officially blessed on June 16, 1906, at Chicago’s Union Station.
The St. Anthony railroad chapel looked like any other railroad car from outside. It was 70 feet long and made of laminated steel, but the inside of the car showed the special purpose of the vehicle. There were special drawers to hold priest vestments, a table with a crucifix secured by screws to avoid damage during movement, and a movable communion railing that could work as a confessional.
As the official log documents preserved in the Special Archive collection of Loyola University in Chicago show, up to 65 people could attend services held inside St. Anthony’s railroad chapel. Between 1907 and 1909, St. Anthony’s railroad chapel traveled across Kansas and South Dakota to bring Holy Communion and Confession to thousands of Catholics.
As Taylor and Taylor noted, railroad chapels were more than just “moving churches,” offering a way to build a strong support system in communities that were just beginning to form. The authors of “The Story of America’s Chapel Cars” also note that they sometimes offered an inclusive place of worship for communities that were at the edges of society. Some carts were “specifically designed to welcome African Americans and members of other minority religions who were not accepted in other churches.”
The popularity of railroad chapels started to decline after World War II, and by the 1970s, when cars overtook trains as the most common mode of transportation in America, they were discontinued. Thanks to digital archives from Loyola University, however, anyone can now learn about one of the most ingenious developments of Catholic faith in recent American history.
Comentários