National Register of Historic Places
First Presbyterian Church
Kirksville, Adair County, Missouri
The record
- Listed
- July 13, 2017
- Type
- Building
- Address
- 201 S. High St., Kirksville
- County
- Adair
- State
- Missouri
- Contributing resources
- 1 building
- Coordinates
- 40.19372, -92.58060
- Reference number
- 100001298
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
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The story
Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com
First Presbyterian Church is a Jacobean and Tudor Revival church at 201 S. High St. in Kirksville, Adair County, built in 1922-1923.
Why it's listed
It was listed under Criterion C and Criteria Consideration A, with local-level significance in architecture; its period of significance, 1922 to 1923, matches the years it was built.
Physical character
The church has brick walls on a concrete foundation under an imitation-slate roof, with shallow buttresses, stepped parapets and limestone coping; inside, a large sanctuary sits above a first floor that holds Fellowship Hall and, at the east end, three floors of Sunday school classrooms and offices. The chancel was reconfigured and a mural by Jack McMillan was added in the 1940s, the organ was replaced in 1984, and the Travers Addition was built east in 1985; the basement and education-wing windows were replaced in the 1990s, and the stained glass was restored in 2012.
Historical context
The Cumberland Presbyterian congregation paid $1,600 in 1877 for the former Missionary Baptist building at McPherson and High Streets; in 1922 it replaced that fifty-year-old building with the present church. Architect Irwin Dunbar, who moved to Kirksville in 1914, designed the building; the cornerstone was laid October 23, 1922.