User:BGinOC/St. Luke’s Episcopal Church (Vancouver, Washington)

The first Anglican Prayer Book services held in what is now Vancouver, Washington, were conducted at Fort Vancouver by Chief Factor John McLoughlin, Chief Trader James Douglas, and by lay readers in 1825. The Reverend Herbert Beaver, the Anglican Communion's first clergyman in the Pacific Northwest, served as Chaplain to the Hudson's Bay Company at fort Vancouver from 1836-1838. The first Protestant Episcopal clergyman in the territory, the Reverend St. Michael Fackler, began a brief period of duty as Post Chaplain of Vancouver Barracks on May 28th, 1850.

The Reverend John D. McCarty, D.D. served as Post Chaplain of the Fourth United States Infantry stationed at Fort Vancouver beginning January, 1853. By 1857, worship in Vancouver's first Episcopal Church was conducted by Dr. McCarty in a schoolhouse located on the south side of East Fifth and West Reserve Streets.

St. Luke's first church was consecrated by the Right Reverend Thomas Fielding Scott, first Episcopal Bishop of the Washington and Oregon Territories, on Whitsunday, May 27, 1860. The parish was incorporated in 1868 and a parish day school was opened in the following year.

In 1879, St. Luke's became the first self-supporting Episcopal Parish in the Washington and Oregon Territories. The first convocation of the Missionary District of Washington was held at St. Luke's on August 24, 1881. At its conclusion, the first Episcopal Ordination took place when E.F. Miles, M.D. was made a Deacon by the Right Reverend John Adams Paddock, on August 28, 1881. In 1931, fire destroyed the second St. Luke's Church building, which was located at Eighth and "C" Streets.

The third St. Luke's church building was erected at 426 East Fourth Plain Boulevard in 1932. By 1942, a parish house had been completed and in 1956 an educational wing was added.