Christ Episcopal Church

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About

Christ Episcopal Church in Coronado holds the distinction of being the island's oldest church, with its cornerstone laid at 1114 Ninth Street in 1894 and the Gothic-style sanctuary completed in 1896 on Coronado Island's 92118 village grid. The church campus also operates Christ Church Day School, a JK-through-sixth-grade private school that draws island families to the same Ninth and C Avenue block where the Bruce Porter stained-glass windows — shipped around the Horn of Africa by sea in 1899 — remain intact above the original high-ceilinged, oak-beamed nave. Beginning as St. Peter's Mission in 1888, the congregation struggled through the bank failures of 1892 until Captain Charles T. Hinde financed the construction of the present Gothic Revival building as a memorial to his thirteen-year-old daughter, converting the loan to a gift upon its dedication. The church's architectural heritage earned historical-site designation from the Coronado Historical Society, placing it alongside Hotel Del Coronado on Orange Avenue and the Irving Gill-designed structures that define the island's built environment. Worship follows the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer with Rite I and Rite II Eucharist services, and the parish's pastoral reach extends into island mental-health support through referral partnerships with practitioners such as CrownTown Counseling. The Ninth Street address sits three blocks east of Orange Avenue and Coronado Beach, within the flat, walkable grid that connects every block on Coronado Island to the commercial corridor, the Coronado Ferry Landing, and the Coronado Bridge approach to mainland San Diego. The first pipe organ arrived in May 1896 with 24 registers and 835 pipes, and the instrument remains a centerpiece of the sanctuary's liturgical music program.