Images of a lantern in progress
There are some spots where once-flat angles have been sloped to promote water runoff and discourage birds from perching, but the new lantern under construction is otherwise simply a newer version of the one it’s replacing.
And before the year is up, contractors say, that adornment will crown the main dome of the Diocese of Wichita’s mother church, the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. The restoration is being made possible by the diocese’s One Family, Fully Alive in Christ! Capital Campaign that concluded in autumn 2025.
According to project superintendent Trent Fair with Simpson Construction, inspections revealed that deterioration of the old lantern’s frame left no doubt that a new one would need to be constructed.
“The original structure had almost nothing,” he said. “When we tore down a post, it was floating at the bottom and not even resting on anything, but was held in place by six nails from the sides.”
The result was a pinnacle that could be moved by hand as far as eight inches in either direction.
Even so, he chuckled in mid-July, such looseness might well have allowed the old lantern to survive the stiff Kansas winds.
“It’s probably a good thing it had some play in there so it didn’t just snap off,” Fair said.
However, once they realized the old lantern could not be salvaged, contractors faced a cost/benefit analysis: build it in place, or on the ground.
Although he acknowledged it would require a heavy-duty construction crane to lift an assembly that will be about 30 feet tall and about 12,000 pounds when fully clad with copper, Fair explained that simple construction logistics, from tool transport to lumber limitations, made terra firma the right choice for fabrication.
“We kind of went back and forth on that,” he said. “Obviously, the crane adds cost, but we calculated the labor cost of building it in place would have been twice as much by the time all the pieces were cut.”
As he continued, he nodded to the scaffolding surrounding the main dome, which teemed with workers restoring it and replacing the old copper with new.
“You would have to get all the material, all the tools, and all the workers up there,” he said. “There’s no room to cut any full-length pieces and we can only get an eight-foot piece of lumber up there. Down here we can use 16-foot (boards).”
Moreover, as Fair discussed the project’s quality and craftsmanship, he notes that many of its most time-consuming elements involve features that are more about beauty than strict function.
“The lantern is a lot more ornate and complex than most might expect,” Fair said. “It’s more trim carpentry than rough framing.”
As work progresses, Fair said one approaching step would be to place and guild the cross at the top. He noted that the artisan tasked with that, Mark Miller, was no stranger to the particulars of the job.
“He actually gilded the crosses here 30 years ago,” Fair said. “He’s coming back to do it again.”
After the cross is gilded and the structure has its copper cladding, Fair related, the lantern can ascend from the cathedral parking lot to its highest point.
“Then, yeah, we’ll lift it,” he said. “All the steel to lift this thing is already fabricated … so we will pick this thing straight up, and set it in place.”
