First Presbyterian Church of Whitefish - Whitefish, MT - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

Waymark Code: WMKQVA

Location: Montana, United States

Date Posted: 05/18/2014

Published By: silverquill

Views: 2

Indicative of the Romanesque Revival style, the original building features large, tall, arched window openings, each containing a pair of arched windows with a circular window piercing the space between the two arch heads. Thin concrete hoodmolds echo the arch of the windows, and feature rectangular concrete label stops at the springline. The sills are formed concrete. Slightly recessed pairs of sixteen-light, wood-frame, fixed windows provide light to the basement level of the original building. On the addition, the main level windows are arched, with brick sills, and formed concrete hood molds and label stops. One-by-one casements fill the lower portion of the arched windows, with single panes filling the arch above the springline. At the basement level, one-by-one, metal-framed sliding windows fill the nearly square window openings.

A recessed, square tower at its northwest corner serves as the main entrance to the building and dominates the church. A pair of large, wooden, paneled doors are centered on both the north and west elevations of the tower, beneath arched window openings. Like the windows throughout the main story of the original building, paired arched windows with a circular window above fill each of the arched openings. A large circular window, set in a floral pattern, is centered above each entry, set off by formed concrete molds, brick voussiors, and concrete keystones. A sandstone cornerstone is set between the entrances on the northeast corner of the tower. A third entry at the tower area is a single, wooden, paneled door located in the north elevation wall created by the recessed nature of the tower. This door is topped with a brick arch, hood mold, and label stops. The arch is filled with brick.

The south of the tower, the west (front) elevation contains three evenly-spaced arched window openings at the main story. Four circular, formed concrete shields are evenly spaced across the wall, within the spaces created between the arches. The daylight basement windows are centered below the arched windows.
From the NRHP Registration Form

Not long after the Great Northern Railway announced its plans for a division point in Whitefish, Presbyterian missionary E. M. Ellis and Kalispell minister Alexander Pringle traveled by bicycle and rowboat to visit the site. Soon after, Reverend Pringle canvassed logging and railroad camps for donations of cash and labor to construct a sanctuary.

By December 1903, Whitefish had its first church. The First Presbyterian Church moved several times in the early years. By 1919, it had once again outgrown its building; to accommodate congregants, the church held services in the Masonic Lodge while planning a new house of worship. Under direction of physician and active church member W. W. Taylor, the building committee devised detailed drawings, which the Spokane architectural firm Rigg and Vantyne modified only slightly.

The building committee chose a Romanesque Revival style design, considered less ostentatious and more appropriate for a Protestant church than the competing Gothic tradition. Romanesque Revival churches featured masonry construction, heavily arched windows, bands of stylized decoration, and towers—in this case a Norman style square tower that serves as the building’s main entrance. The one-story building featured a large daylight basement with a high ceiling, designed to provide clearance for a full-sized basketball court.

Community members donated the large art glass windows ornamenting the sanctuary. Among them are two purchased by Japanese railroad workers for $700 in honor of churchwoman Elizabeth Peck, who taught the men English. A tribute to Peck, the windows also commemorate Whitefish’s once-thriving Japanese community and the church’s long history of community service.
From From the NRHP plaque