Originally founded in 1858 to serve the city's growing German population, it is noted for its historic parish church at the corner of New Jersey and Vermont streets, which was completed in 1912.

Designed by architect Hermann J. Gaul in the late Gothic Revival style, it follows a cruciform plan modeled after the Cologne Cathedral in Germany.

In 1856 Reverend Peter Leonard Brandt arrived from Vincennes, Indiana, to establish a German-speaking parish among the German Catholics of Indianapolis.

Parish priests conducted services in Latin and German, and the church retained Old World traditions.

[3][4] After the turn of the century, when the neighborhood become commercial, the parish purchased property at New Jersey and Vermont streets, where they built the present church, which was under construction from 1910 to 1912.

[7] Stone walls on each side of the church include buttresses with a vaulted arch over each bay.

On the north side, a stained-glass window depicts St. Boniface, the saint who converted the Germans to Christianity.