ONLY - Remaining Occupied building in Barber, MT - Lucky 7 on Waymarking.com

The Grace Lutheran Church stands as a landmark and symbol of the town that was once Barber, Montana. Built in 1917, the church is a fine example of wood framed, vernacular architecture with pointed arch fenestration and wooden tracery. The church was constructed by the combined efforts of the people of Barber. In addition to its architectural significance the Grace Lutheran Church is associated with a number of persons important in the early settlement of Barber.

Shortly after the Chicago-Milwaukee Railroad laid its tracks through the MusselIshell Valley and the area was opened for homesteading, the town of Barber was settled. In 1908, N.C. Eklund and Henry Bartz, the co-founders of the town, purchased 18,000 acres of land. By the time the families of these men arrived in Montana on July7, 1910, Barber was thriving community. A grocery store, a general store for the sale of farm machinery, and a lumber yard had been set up. The movement for a church and school soon followed in regular order.

In 1912 work began on a Lutheran Church building, but it had to be abandoned and the lots were donated for the construction of a school. The Methodists also organized a congregation and, with the assistance of the entire community, were able to erect a church in 1917- this building, now the Grace Lutheran Church, was used by both congregations in its early years.

The town of Barber grew rapidly around the time of World War I. The Church, also serving the community as a social center, was the setting for numerous picnics and community gatherings. During the 1920's, a combination of drought, hail, grasshoppers and low prices for grain forced farmers to leave. The Methodist Church was abandoned. In 1927, the Lutherans purchased the building and rededicated it in 1929.

Little remains to indicate the past presence of the once prosperous community of Barber. Only the vault section of the old bank and two small, unoccupied commercial buildings stand. The Grace Lutheran Church is the only building from Old Barber which remains in use, drawing its congregation from towns as far as 20 to 30 miles away. Today the Grace Lutheran Church has the distinction of being the smallest active American Lutheran Congregation in the States.
From the NRHP Registration Form

GRACE LUTHERAN CHURCH
This delicate wooden church was built in 1917 by a Methodist congregation in the small, new farming town of Barber. The town owed its existence to arrival of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific Railroad in the Musselshell Valley in 1908 and the dreams and business decisions of N. C. Eklund and Henry Bartz. Attempts to build a school and churches followed construction of a general store, a grocery, and lumberyard. The Lutherans and the Methodists shared this building for several years. But as Barber declined in the drought and bust years following World War I, the Methodist congregation moved. The Lutherans purchased the building in 1927 and continue to use and maintain it. Grace Lutheran Church is now the single, occupied building left as a reminder of historic Barber. The church's gabled-ell vernacular design, square bell tower at the ell's junction and its gothic window tracery were features common to small Methodist buildings of the period. Both the interior and the exterior of the building survive virtually unchanged. Like many rural churches, the small building contains both simple, elegant worship space and a kitchen used for community and church social functions.
From the plaque at the building