Father Pitt

Tag: Frame Churches

  • Union Baptist Church, Knoxville

    Union Baptist Church
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    This church is now a duplex residence, and it may have been deconsecrated for quite a long while. Old maps cease to show it as a church by 1917: this Hopkins plat map simply shows a frame building at the corner of Beltzhoover Avenue and Jucunda Street.

    The tower, however, gives it away: though it has been heavily altered, this is a rare surviving frame church from about 1895. It does not appear on an 1893 Sanborn fire-insurance map, but on an 1896 Hopkins plat map it is marked “Union Bapt. Ch.”

    Most small frame churches of that era in the city were later replaced by larger brick or stone churches, but this one fizzled out. It appears on an 1898 Sanborn fire-insurance map as “German Baptist Mission,” and perhaps that explains its short life: it may have been an attempt by the Baptists to reach Germans in the heavily German borough of Knoxville, but the Germans preferred to remain Catholic or Lutheran.

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  • First Baptist Church, Coraopolis

    First Baptist Church, Coraopolis

    Though the renovations with modern materials—understandable for a congregation on a tight budget—have not always been sympathetic, this is still a valuable relic of the era of Victorian frame Gothic churches. As Pittsburgh and its suburbs prospered in the twentieth century, most of those churches were replaces with bigger and brickier structures, so although these churches were once all over western Pennsylvania, remnants like this are fairly rare. This one no longer serves the Baptist congregation (or the Anglican congregation that inhabited it more recently), but some maintenance work seems to be going on.

    Belfry

    The distinctive wooden belfry is still in good shape, though missing a few pieces of trim and wanting a bit of paint. The trim is simple and could be replicated in somebody’s garage woodshop.

    Belfry
    First Baptist Church
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

  • Episcopal Church of the Messiah, Sheraden

    Episcopal Church of the Messiah

    Very few Shingle-style frame Gothic churches are left in Pittsburgh with their original wood siding: they usually get covered with artificial siding that obscures all the details and character of the building. How long this rare survivor from the 1890s will last is questionable: it belongs to the Pneuma Center for Biblical Guidance now, and it is always a temptation for organizations on a small budget to solve every problem with vinyl. So far the owners have kept the place beautifully.

    Front of the church
    With the attached parsonage