Charming Older Church

White corner church building with three-story tower, but no steeple

Location: Iglesia De Dios Tabernáculo Consejero Fiel, 3149 35th Ave South

I’ve wondered about this charming older building that has hosted many churches over the years. I find the steplike roofline and apparently attached parsonage particularly interesting. From a WPA publication from 1942, I learned that this building was built in the middle 1880s by the St. Peder Danish Lutheran Congregation. That congregation is still in the neighborhood, but moved into a new building in 1961.

Photo: Jane Strauss

2 thoughts on “Charming Older Church”

  1. The church is built in the style of a typical Danish country church.

    I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about the date, which is probably the date the congregation was founded. In the 1880s, this neighborhood would have been rural farm country. The congregation’s first church was in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood (Snoose Boulevard, Dania Hall, etc.). The photo shows the congregation’s second building, and I’m sure it was built in the 20th century.

    Note the separate entrance at the left of the photo. That was the front door of the parsonage, which was connected to the church itself by the ell you see. The buildings were connected at the basement level, as well as the main level. I remember well going from the general Sunday School meeting area beneath the sanctuary through the basement passage to the parsonage basement, where our age-specific class met – right next to the parsonage’s big furnace.

  2. Thanks fr the memories! You’re absolutely correct about the date, Henrik. A few weeks after I took this photo, I took a photo of the current location of St. Peder’s, and had the opportunity to talk with the pastor. This location was built in 1921, after an earlier church, north of Longfellow, had burned to the ground. The congregation used this building for forty years, until their current building was constructed to accommodate a growing congregation.

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