Pilgrim Congregational Church was formally organized on December 5, 1866, an outgrowth of Pilgrim Sabbath School, which had been established in 1853 by a Congregational minister and led by a layman for nearly 14 years. A minister from Cleveland, Ohio, was called to lead the new congregation. Construction commenced on a church building near downtown St. Louis.

At the beginning of the 20th Century, having grown to 1,721 members, Pilgrim decided to move west, along with the growing population of the city. The current church structure with a seating capacity of 1,200 was begun in 1906 and completed in 1907.

The Rev. Truman B. Douglass, who served as Pilgrim’s minister from 1935 to 1943, initiated conversations that ultimately led to the creation of the United Church of Christ. He extended an invitation to the Rev. Dr. S.D. Press, head of Eden Seminary, an Evangelical and Reformed Church seminary in Webster Groves, Mo., to participate with a group of young ministers exploring “Christian Unity.” This small group initiated the merger of the Congregational Christian and Evangelical and Reformed churches.

Through the years, the church building was improved and expanded with various new and improved facilities, the 150-seat Danforth chapel, and the addition of a 78-rank four-manual organ in the main church sanctuary.

In 1953, as St. Louis’ population continued to migrate westward and the neighborhood around the church changed, there was heated debate within the congregation about moving to the western suburbs. In a close vote, a majority of the members chose to remain in the current location and open the church’s doors to all who desired to worship, without regard to race or economic status.

The first African-American members joined in 1955. The church has continued to be a multi-racial faith community, with a roughly equal balance of black and white members for the past 70 years. In 2006, Pilgrim voted to become an Open and Affirming Church (ONA) within the UCC, welcoming persons of all sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions into the church’s full life and ministry.

Pilgrim hosted a weekly soup kitchen from 1982-2020. Volunteers served more than 100,000 hot meals in its’ 37 years of operation, along with providing reading materials, blankets, and personalized holiday cards for our guests. When Dignity House, the UCC’s Neighborhood House located next door to Pilgrim, closed in 2010, Pilgrim stepped in to offer emergency food pantry services. Our Food Pantry (which also offered a limited supply of clothing and a small lending library) was open twice per month until we had to close these services due to the pandemic.  Some financial resources were reallocated to Centennial Christian Church to continue serving persons experiencing food insecurity in our area.