The Catholic Church made the North Division a parish in 1846, and the new parish's first church building was completed three three years later at the corner of Rush and Superior streets, on the grounds of St. Mary’s College of the Lake. The first church in the current site, on the northeast corner of State and Superior streets, began with a small building erected in the early 1850s. With the increasing number of Catholics in the North Division, the Catholic Church hierarchy authorized a much larger building that would be the cathedral of the Chicago Diocese.
