[1][2] Saints Peter and Paul parish was created in 1889, a response to the upper east side's rapidly growing German immigrant population during the 1880s and 90s, at the direction of Milwaukee's vicar general, the Right Reverend Leonard Batz.

The parish began with forty-three families, and they initially worshiped in a temporary chapel on the corner of East Bradford and North Cramer Streets, while the permanent church was being built nearby.

[1] The church building was designed by Henry Messmer of Milwaukee in Romanesque Revival style, with rusticated limestone foundations supporting cream brick walls.

High in the tower is a rose window, above that a belfry clad in ornamental sheet metal, and then a slate-roofed spire topped with a Latin cross.

This building also was designed by Messmer, but in Neoclassical style, with a rusticated limestone foundation, cream brick walls above that, and a hip roof.