St. Aidan's Anglican Church (Spokane, Washington)

St. Aidan's Anglican Church is a historic church building in the East Central neighborhood of Spokane, Washington. Built in 1909 as the First German Baptist Church, the building has changed hands several times and is currently a parish of the Diocese of Cascadia in the Anglican Church in North America.

St. Aidan's Anglican Church
formerly First German Baptist Church
St. Aidan's Anglican Church in April of 2023
47°39′00″N 117°23′43″W
LocationSpokane, Washington
CountryUnited States
DenominationAnglican Church in North America
Websitestaidansanglican.com
Architecture
StyleCarpenter Gothic
Years built1909
Administration
DioceseCascadia
Clergy
Pastor(s)The Rev. Carter Smith-Stepper

History of the building

The First German Baptist Church was founded by the Rev. F. J. Reichle, who arrived in Spokane in 1904 as a missionary of the General Conference of German Baptist Churches in North America. He organized the church in 1906 and became its first minister.[1] The next year, the congregation acquired a lot at Hartson Avenue and Arthur Street and built a wooden church there in 1909.[2] (Reichle left the church in 1911 under controversy after "romantic developments" with a maid 17 years his junior. The pair married a year later in Oregon.[3])

An addition to the front of the church was completed in the 1920s. The church continued to offer services in both English and German until the 1940s, during which decade the church was renamed Arthur Street Baptist Church, a member of the North American Baptist Conference that succeeded the German Baptist group. This congregation renamed itself after 1953 and moved to a new location.[2] The original building at Hartson and Arthur became the home of St. Matthew's Baptist Church, a prominent African-American church in Spokane.[2] The church was used as a meeting location for the civil rights movement in Spokane, and the local NAACP chapter frequently met at the church from the 1950s onward.[4][5]

By 2006, however, St. Matthew's congregation had dwindled and the building had fallen into disrepair. St. Matthew's relocated to a vacant but newer church building.[2] After several years of vacancy, the building was sold to the Anglican Diocese of Cascadia to be used for a church plant called St. Aidan's Anglican Church.[6] The church planter and his wife are restoring the building while the church uses it for worship.[7]

Architecture
The church in 1926

The church was originally a two-story, cross-gabled structure with wood siding and a stone foundation. Its steeply pitched roofs and corner tower exemplified Carpenter Gothic architecture. Decorative trusswork originally filled in the gable ends but were removed in the 1928 addition. The removal of the trusswork left the building austere and relatively unornamented, except for details on bargeboards and decorative eave brackets. The 1928 addition resulted in a substantial change to the church's appearance, moving the main entrance to the eastern (Arthur Street) side and adding a tower with a pyramidal roof on the southeast corner.[8]

The church's interior features an open foyer on the east side of the building and a sanctuary that occupies the rest of the floor. An immersion baptistry is located under removable floorboards behind the pulpit on the west wall of the church. A drop ceiling added later obscures the vaulting in the sanctuary.[8]

References
  1. Reichle, R. I. (January 1908). "Field Notes". Baptist Home Mission Monthly. 30 (1): 458. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
  2. "First German / Arthur Street / Saint Matthew's Baptist Church". City - County of Spokane Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
  3. "Baptist Pastor Weds Hired Girl". Oregonian. July 4, 1912.
  4. "Members to See 2 Films at Meet". Spokane Daily Chronicle. March 25, 1957.
  5. "City NAACP Sets Meeting". The Spokesman-Review. May 11, 1979.
  6. Brotherton, Ryan. "Church Planting: On Mission in Spokane". Diocese of Cascadia. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
  7. "South Arthur Restoration Project". St. Aidan's Anglican Church. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
  8. "Historic Property Inventory Report" (PDF). City - County of Spokane Historic Preservation Office. September 17, 2015. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to St. Aidan's Anglican Church (Spokane, Washington).
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.