St. Thomas the Apostle was incorporated on October 28, 1908. It was the first
Catholic parish in Southwest Minneapolis. The first church was located on
the corner of 44th Street and York.
The parish acquired land along 44th Street between Upton and Washburn Ave.
in the early 1920s. St. Thomas the Apostle School opened in September of 1925
and Mass was celebrated in the new church for the first time on Christmas Eve
that year. The space had originally been intended to serve as an auditorium
for the school, with a church to be built facing Upton Ave. However, the Great
Depression made those plans no longer realistic. Mass is still celebrated in the
same space, originally designed by parishioner and architect Joseph Victor
Vanderbilt. His design was described as “Italian Romanesque … noble in its
dignified simplicity,” in an article in the Minneapolis Tribune.
In 2003, St. Thomas the Apostle and Christ the King combined their elementary schools. The
joint effort was christened Carondelet Catholic School in recognition of the Sisters of St. Joseph
of Carondelet who were the original teachers in both schools.
The worship space was remodeled in 2000, moving the altar to the center of the church,
removing the carpeting and choir loft and replacing plastic chairs with wooden ones. A
gathering space was added to the front of the building and the church’s accessibility was
improved by the addition of an elevator in the school building.