Jacksonville Architecture

Immaculate Conception Church traces its origin to around 1845, when it was founded in Jacksonville as a mission of the Catholic parish of Savannah. Two church buildings were erected for the congregation prior to the present one. The first was built shortly before 1847, and in 1854 Immaculate Conception was established as a parish with Father William Hamilton as the first full-time pastor. This earliest church building was burned by Federal troops during the Civil War. The second building, completed in 1874, succumbed to the 1901 Fire. New York architect M. H. Hubbard designed this building in 1905, the year after his design for Bethel Baptist Church (D-66) was completed. Construction on Immaculate Conception Church did not begin until 1907, however, and the finished structure was dedicated on December 8, 1910. It is one of the finest Late Gothic Revival churches in Florida. Its pointed arches, cruciform floor plan, window tracery, buttresses, pinnacles, and spires are typical of the Gothic style. The vaulted interior space is magnificent. Until the fifteen-story Heard Building (D-57) was completed in 1913, the gold-plated cross atop the slender steeple was the highest point in the city, towering 178.5 feet. In 1979 the Immaculate Conception Church became one of a small number of Catholic churches in America to be "solemnly dedicated," meaning that it cannot ever be purposefully torn down or used for anything but a church.