Cathedral Church of St. Paul/Interfaith Emergency Center

In 1824 the Reverend Richard Cadle led the founding of St. Paul's Church, the first Episcopal church in Michigan. St. Paul's purchased property here in 1892, and construction of this Gothic Revival style cathedral, designed by Ralph Adams Cram, began in 1908. Detroit's Pewabic Pottery fashioned the large installation of ceramic floor tile inside the cathedral. In 1911 Bishop Charles D. Williams dedicated the cathedral. St. Paul's partnered with WWJ, The Detroit New's radio station, in 1922 to become of the first churches in Detroit to broadcast its services live. Influential Detroit leaders, including Governors Stevens T. Mason and G. Mennen Williams, were members of the congregation. On April 10, 147, St. Paul's held Henry Ford's funeral. Some twenty thousand people attended. Interfaith Emergency Center On the second day of the uprising of 1967, Detroit Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant leaders united to create the Interfaith Emergency Center in an effort to bring emergency supplies and food to people and areas affected by the violence. The Cathedral Church of St. Paul became the Interfaith Emergency Center's headquarters. Throughout the city, twenty-one distribution stations and twenty-five collection centers used the cathedral as a base of operations. The United Auto Workers and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations provided volunteers and nine trucks that distributed supplies. Other organizations that officially supported and aided the relief efforts of the center included Detroit city government, the Red Cross and Detroit Public Schools.