Built in 1891 by John Niemi and John Saari the church is a basic naveplan
form with a rectangular narthex surmounted by a square steeple and
rectangular apse on the rear. This apse appears to be of a more recent
date. Each side facade is pierced by three lancet-arched windows.
Resting on a concrete foundation, the building is frame and covered in
horizontal board siding. The front facade has two interesting details.
One is the matching circular windows on the front facade of the nave and
located above the rectangular windows which flank the entrance into the
narthex. Secondly, the belfrey is open and has a flared-eave, octagonal
roof; the belfry itself is built above a flared-eave, pyramidal roof.
Recently loud speakers and signs have been mounted on the steeple.
The interior has been radically changed and the building is now used as
an art gallery and tourist gift shop. Behind a curtain covering the
altar area is a painting of the Ascension of Christ. This was painted
by Charles Alaniva, a Finnish miner and was installed in 1907.
The Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church is significant as the only
remaining institutional building which marks the history of the Finns in
Lead. In addition the church retains an unusual altar painting, painted
by one of its members in 1905-1907.
This church was one of three Finnish Lutheran congregations in Lead and
is the only one to have survived. The congregation worships across the
street in the new First Lutheran Church building, erected in 1963 when
several different Lutheran ethnic groups merged into the Lutheran Church
in America. Although this congregation is long-lived, it suffered from
strife, splinter groups and even total inactivity for several years.
For, unlike the rural areas, the Finns in Lead tended to be young,
single and highly mobile. The institutional permanence of the church
was not as important as it was in areas of permanent, long-term, family
settlement.
In 1889 the Reverend Henry Tanner, a missionary from the Seaman's
Mission Society in Finland, organized a Lutheran congregation. The
congregants met first in the Methodist Church and temperance hall.
However, many members decided they needed their own, non-secular,
building. In 1891 this structure was erected. In the 1890s when the
majority of the members voted to join the Evangelical of Suomi Synod,
some congregants left to form their independent group. This congregation
was comprised of miners, domestic workers and a few merchants.
The church building has been moved two times. The first time in 1963 when a new church building was constructed. The second time was in 1994 to accommodate an expansion of the Open Cut mine. The building is in very good condition and currently used as an art gallery and gift shop.