Cathedral Car

Bishop William D. Walker of North Dakota faced many difficulties in his missionary work. He conceived the idea of a traveling chapel which would carry the church to those outlying places where there were no facilities for services. In 1889 he approached friends in the east for money to build a railway chapel. The sixty-foot car was built by the Pullman Palace Car Company at a cost of $3,000. Eighty persons could be seated on portable chairs in the coach. Painted on the car were the words: “The Church of the Advent,” and “The Cathedral Car of North Dakota.” Bishop Walker sometimes referred to the car as the “Roaming Catholic Cathedral.” The Cathedral Car was sold in 1901.