Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. 9 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1904.
From the record
“Raphael's Church is a historic Catholic church in the city of Springfield, Ohio, United States. Established in the 1840s as Springfield's first Catholic parish, it uses a Gothic Revival church building, the towers of which hold a prominent spot in the city's skyline.”
Wikipedia article St. Raphael's Catholic Church (Springfield, Ohio), CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 41 National Register listings published here for Clark County · listed in 1976 · category: Building.
National Register reference number.76001381- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Domint informed his visitors of bis intent to lay out a town, and offered valuable tracts of lund at low prices. John Dungherty, of Kentucky, & surveyor, was speedily engaged, nod the work of suryay commenced Mareh 17, 1801, This town plat was bounded on the south by the section line running parallel with Main Street, and distant from it south one hundred and twenty-five feet; on tho wort to the ulloy near the Prosbyterian Church; on the north to the top of tho rocks along Buck Creek; vod on the oast to the onst line of Spring Street. he number of lols incladed was eighly-two. 'They were not recorded us u town plat til 1803, What is now Columbia wag in this plat. Muin and the present Main wus enlled South Street. Mrs. Demint suggested that, on account of the numerous adjacent springs, the place should be called Springfield, and the name was adopted,
Lhe survey completed, Foose and his party returned to Fraoklington for their fumilies. In their removal with their wagons, they made the first wagon-trucle from that direction into Springfield. The jouruey oveupied four wand uw hal! days, one day being given lo crossing the Big Darby. Virst they packed their goods acrosa upon horses, and then drew their wagons over with ropes, while some Their route through the woods had to be cleared with the axe in many places. After Moos arrived, he made prepirations for the erection of nh house.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 6 fires within 5 miles of St. Raphael Church
in 2002, burning about 18 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 1 was recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
2
Natural
1
Debris and open burning
1
Recreation and ceremony
1
Arson/incendiarism
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 1,444 specimens
collected within 10 miles of St. Raphael Church between 1840 and 1975: 970 Animalia, 333 Plantae, 138 Fungi, 2 Unrecorded, 1 Chromista.
12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by 73.7; J.H., ?, A JOHN and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
7 workings within 5 miles of St. Raphael Church: 5 past producers, 2 producers.
2 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Springfield, the town this property stands in, in 107 storm reports between 1994 and 2023: 56 thunderstorm wind, 31 hail, 10 flash flood, 4 flood.
The reports record 2 injuries. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Several utility poles were down, a barn was blown off of its foundation, and minor damage occurred to a house and an apartment due to damaging thunderstorm winds.
A tornado touched down along Moorefield Road, just to the east of State Route 4. Trees were either uprooted or snapped off towards their tops with additional large limbs down from other trees. Some minor structural damage occured as well along the 250 yard damage path. The tornado was rated EF-0 with top wind speeds of 70 mph.
A barn was blown over on Victory Road. Several trees and power lines were down on Sintz Road. In another location, a roof was peeled back due to damaging thunderstorm winds.
There was scattered damage at a mobile home park affecting four mobile homes. A metal carport was heavily damaged. Three evergreen trees were also downed.
Numerous 12 to 15 inch diameter trees were downed in Snyder Park. A tree fell on a house on Upper Valley Pike. Part of the roof was removed as a result.
Three to four inches of rain fell across southern Clark County as thunderstorms pushed slowly east during the late evening. A car was washed into a flooded ditch near the Springfield Airport along US 68. High water caused several road closures across the southern part of the county, with basements flooded on the south side of Springfield.
2 papers published in this town,
digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be
looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.
United States Geological Survey topographic
sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then
testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
St. Raphael Church is built of rock-faced Berea sandstone, rectangular in plan with plan. These "arms' are used for side entrances and confessionals. The basement appearance of having "sunk" into the earth. The main facade faces north and is flanked by two, square towers. The tower to the doors, divided by rounded, smooth stone columns and framed by flat stone work. Above the entrances is a single large, stained glass window with its original tracery. Stone north sides, and a large window, similar to that in the facade, flanked by small turrets arches of plaster. There are no pillars supporting the ceiling, which is some 60 feet > levels. The 'arms' toward the rear of the church contain entrances and oak confessionals; altar of marble.
of the sanctuary is a marble pulpit reached by a flight of steps. A modern, wooden, "sea shell" or sounding board originally was above the pulpit, but it has been removed baptistry with a marble, Gothic fount. This tower contains the original bell of the old St. Raphael Church (1848) . The Gothic revival mode of the church does have some Romanesque revival details, including the massiveness of the towers, the elongated lancet windows, the minimal false buttressing CONDITION UNALTERED the pinnacle of each tower.The entrance consists of three Gothic doorways with wooden _DETERIORATED to the choir. The choir is a semi-circular balcony area constructed above the narthex.
The significance of St. Raphael Church reposes on its architect, Charles A. Cregar, the both buildings, the rusticated masonry, Romanesque arcading and pyramidal apices. MAR 1 7 1976 1892-1898 1400-1499 1500-1599 1600-1699 EDUCATION ENGINEERING THEATER INVENTION ARCHEOLOGY-HISTORIC PERIOD RELIGION MILITARY SIGNIFICANCE AGRICULTURE CONSERVATION XARCHITECTURE RECEIVED REGISTER INDUSTRY EXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT NATIONAL _PREHISTORIC LITERATURE _COMMUNICATIONS _TRANSPORTATION standing in Springfield, Charles Creager was architect of eight with major significance.
X-1800-1899 of his death was credited with having designed nine major Springfield buildings and revival style and is one of the principal buildings of Springfield.This church seven others in conjunction with his brother.Of those historic buildings still The fashionable Richardson Romanesque was Cregar's forte.He was able to brilliantly Romanesque and Gothic into a strikingly unified whole. adapt and blend it with other motifs.In St.Raphael he successfully combined the -SCULPTURE -PHILOSOPHY These include the Springfield City Building (N.R.),the Arcade Hotel (N.R.),and six monument to a most prominent local architect.
-1700-1799 -ECONOMICS St.Raphael Church remains one of the principal structures of Springfield anda Charles A.Cregar was born in Springfield on May 9,1858,the son of Nathaniel -SOCIAL/HUMANITARIAN draftsmanship and by 1883,at the age of 25,he had become a partner in his father's BUILDER/ARCHITECT Charles A. Cregar -COMMERCE profession in a short period of time. After high school he studied -MUSIC -1900- -COMMUNITY PLANNING most renown architect ever produced locally.
It is an excellent example of the Gothic serves as a chronological link in the development of Cregar's style from his Arcade ARCHEOLOGY-PREHISTORIC churches.Cregar displayed near-genius in his mastering of the architectural The Springfield City Building was complete when St.Raphael was begun,and it obviously Hotel and the Springfie1d City Bui1ding on the Register. - LAW
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 76001381, 18 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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