“Twin spires studded with stunning stained glass rise from a southwest Detroit neighborhood tucked under the Ambassador Bridge connecting Canada and the United States.”

“Repeatedly resurrected following fires and urban renewal, saved from the wrecking ball when times were tough and most recently rescued when threatened by the renovation of the Ambassador Bridge, Ste. Anne parish spans a trajectory covering three centuries.”

“It reigns as the second oldest parish in the country with an unbroken history, born seventy-five years before the United States even existed as a country. It is Detroit's sole operating entity that dates to the city's founding. On U.S. soil, only the parish at St. Augustine, Florida, dating to 1594, is older.”

“The church's records document Detroit's evolution from a French settlement to a British-claimed territory to a U.S. city.”

“Ste. Anne’s origins date to the hot day in late July 1701 when French adventurer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, with his entourage and their provisions jammed into twenty-five canoes, wound down the Detroit River on the final day of a journey that began in Montreal.”

“In 1703 a group of Native Americans, unhappy with the French, set fire to the settlement's barn filled with food supplies.”

“The new Ste. Anne- possibly the sixth- went up in 1755.”

“In 1805, with Gabriel Richard serving as pastor of the church, fire raged through Detroit, destroying most of the city and-once again- Ste. Anne.”

“But it would take another decade, until Christmas Eve 1828, before the new Ste. Anne would be completed.”

“The last services in the old church were held on June 27, 1886.”

“The new Ste. Anne was completed on October 27, 1887, to seat fourteen hundred worshippers.”

Quoted from the Ste. Anne de Detroit’s Tricentennial Jubilee Website