Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church Complex

About this property

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church is a Catholic church of the Archdiocese of Detroit located at 13770 Gratiot Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. It is commonly known as the Assumption Grotto Church. The church community was founded in the 1830s, and the present building completed in 1929, designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1990 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church Complex consists of multiple structures: the church, a convent, a rectory, a cemetery, and the grotto, along with a utilitarian boiler house. A gymnasium and activity building, constructed in the 1960s lies behind the convent behind a vacant area which was previously occupied by a school building. The church is a basilica-plan Neo-Gothic structure, faced with limestone and occupies the middle of the property facing Gratiot Avenue. The interior of the church includes altars and communion rails of Italian marble and stained glass windows illustrating scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary and the saints. The rectory dates to 1918 and lies to the south of the church with the convent to the north dating from the early 1920s. Both are constructed of red brick along with the modest boiler house located next to the convent. A parish cemetery with a variety of monuments spanning from the early 19th century to the present lies east, to the rear of the church. A large statue of Our Lady of Lourdes stands on the grounds facing Gratiot. Near the rear of the cemetery is the grotto. The shrine is constructed from imported limestone, and was completed in 1881. Boulders placed around the shrine (as well as in the cemetery) were carried by farmers from all parts of Michigan. Some of the stones and many of the limestone pieces are carved with names and dedications. When German immigrants first came to Detroit in 1830, they arrived in the middle of a cholera epidemic. Avoiding the city, they traveled north along Gratiot, settling among a handful of French Roman Catholics families that were descendants of the earliest trappers and pioneers. The parish history is through the Greiner family, a name recognized from monuments in the cemetery and from the street which intersects Gratiot Avenue near the church. (Greiner Street). John and Catherine Greiner came to Detroit and in the 1830s settled on “Fort Gratiot Turnpike” just across from St. Mary’s in the Woods, the log cabin chapel that was the forerunner to our first parish church, the land for which having been donated by the Greiners. They established a small settlement named Conner Creek and built a log church at the site where this church now stands. They called the building Kirchen Wald (Church in the Woods), and Redemptionist missionaries offered Roman Catholic services in the structure. The name was later changed to "Chapel of the Assumption" and later "St. Mary's in the Woods" before being designated the "Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church."

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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