First Methodist Episcopal Church

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 Methodist Episcopal Church is a stone church at 946 Vermont St. in Lawrence, Douglas County, built from 1888 to 1891 in the Romanesque Revival style with a strong Richardsonian influence. The nomination names John Gideon Haskell as its 1891 architect.

Why it's listed

It was listed under criteria A and C, with a criteria consideration for its religious use, and has local-level significance in architecture. The nomination gives its period of significance as 1888 to 1962, spanning its 1888-1891 construction and a 1962 education wing designed by Robertson and Ericson.

Physical character

The walls are quarry-faced limestone laid in broken ashlar, with a three-story modern brick wing completed in 1962. Two square towers, a four-story tower on the south and a three-story tower on the north, have pyramidal black slate roofs, round arches over the doors, and a large arched window under the west gable.

Historical context

The congregation organized in 1855 and, after Quantrill's 1863 raid on Lawrence, used its earlier church as a morgue and hospital. It was known as the Methodist Church from 1939 and became the United Methodist Church in 1968, and in the 1980s it chose to keep and improve its downtown building rather than relocate.