Calvary opened on Thanksgiving

Calvary Presbyterian Church opened on Fillmore Street — its third location — with a community Thanksgiving service in November 1902.

The church moved to Fillmore from Union Square to make way for the construction of the St. Francis Hotel. Much of the Powell Street church — including all of the pews and over a million of the bricks — was moved and re-used in the church on Fillmore Street. An education building on the north side was replaced in 1980. Three of the large window arches from the old building were saved and mounted outside the floor-to-ceiling windows on the west wall of the new building.

Calvary’s first location, from 1854 to 1868, was downtown on Bush at Montgomery where the Mills Building stands today.