A THREATENED LARAMIE STRUCTURE – THE OLD SCANDINAVIAN LUTHERAN CHURCH
The historic and beloved Scandinavian Lutheran Church sits deserted and forlorn at 201 S. Pine St. For years it has contributed to the unique character and appearance of Laramie’s West Side Neighborhood. But this piece of history is endangered; it has been neglected for the past several years and is badly in need of restorative efforts.
CHURCH HISTORY
Today’s Trinity Lutheran Church at 107 S. 7th St. is the home of the congregation that founded the old church. The congregation will hold its 140th Anniversary celebration in Laramie on Oct. 19, 2024.
It began in August 1884, when Norway native Rev. Frederik Michael Andreason (1837-1913) came to Laramie to organize the Scandinavian Lutherans. Approximately 250 Scandinavians were here then. He enrolled about 85 members and moved his family to Laramie by December 1884 to become pastor.
Until he arrived, Laramie Scandinavians had not heard the gospel preached in one of their three native languages. The church had 150 members in 1891 and a Sunday School of 90 youths who were taught in all the Scandinavian languages and in English. By 1905, however, services were primarily in English.
Trustees filed a certificate of incorporation with Wyoming Territory in 1885 as “The First Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Trinity Church of Laramie.” Elected trustees were a Dane, a Swede, and a Norwegian including Frederick Prahl (1838-1908) who arrived from Denmark by 1872, Charles Conners (1849-1892) who arrived from Sweden before 1876, and Alex “Evan” Christie (1835-1908), who was the first Scandinavian in Laramie City, arriving on May 2, 1868 from Norway.
The multi-ethnic tradition continued into the 20th century with 1903 trustees consisting of two Danes, two Swedes, and two Norwegians.
CHURCH AND PARSONAGE
In 1885, trustees purchased three lots on the corner of West A Street (now Ivinson Avenue) and Pine Street. While awaiting a new church building, services were held at the nearby West Side School.
The building committee included Prahl, Christie, Andreason, E. Pearson, John Main, M. Madsen, and N. Larsen. They engaged contractor and architect George Berner (1847-1917) to construct a new wood-framed church.
The cornerstone was laid on April 26, 1885, the gold ball and cross mounted on the steeple in May 1885, and the building dedicated on July 26, 1885. Hardware dealers Grow and Holcomb gifted a new heating stove. In early 1891 a new six-room parsonage, still standing today, was completed next to the church.
This was the first Scandinavian Lutheran church building in Wyoming. It is the oldest Laramie church still standing at its original location. All other Laramie churches built earlier than 1885 were demolished, with one exception. The Methodist Episcopal Church, built in 1869 on the southeast corner 2nd Street and Center Street (now University Avenue), was later moved to the northwest corner of that intersection to make way for the Elks Lodge. It is currently a yoga studio.
ALMOST BUILT ELSEWHERE
Today, we can’t imagine the West Side church being located anywhere else. But it was almost built on the northwest corner at Fifth and Grand. In 1868, Union Pacific Railroad gave that land to this denomination via a quitclaim deed to Rev. Henry Kuhns, a Lutheran pastor in Nebraska.
The transaction was filed with the county in 1876; however, N. K. Boswell apparently purchased the land for taxes in 1880, and around 1883 he moved an officers’ quarters there from Fort Sanders (that house is now at LaBonte Park, used by Feeding Laramie Valley). The land mix-up was rectified through an 1885 deed from Kuhns to church trustees, followed by the trustees selling to Boswell in 1886.
Church history documents a significant budgetary crisis in 1898 causing the church to be closed and electricity “cut off.” The council continued to meet at Willis Jensen’s furniture store. Several members eventually pledged standard monthly amounts so the church could reopen by 1900.
LIGHTNING STRIKE
On May 11, 1912, lightning struck the church steeple, causing a fire that did considerable damage to the tower and the roof of the church.
The damage required rebuilding of the steeple tower. Heat from the fire also caused plaster to fall off inside the church. Services and Sunday School were held at West Side School while repairs were made.
NEW EAST SIDE CHURCH
Rev. Herbert Charles Gans (1894-1979), pastor during 1922-1924, oversaw purchase of the future east side building site on Seventh Street. He was also credited with installing a new financial system “more than doubling the income of the congregation,” according to a news article.
Construction was completed on the new church by early 1926. The West Side church was abandoned for church services, though for a time it was used as a Sunday school for West Side children and for occasional communion services.
LATER YEARS
Greta Rosen authored a paper as a ninth grader for the 1984 Wyoming History Day competition titled “Trinity Lutheran Church – a Family History.” She noted: “The 1930s were the time of our country’s Great Depression. These years were full of great debt for the church also.”
Land records document the church’s loss of the West Side parsonage, which had been used as collateral on a 1931 mortgage loan with Albany Mutual Building Association. The church defaulted and the Sheriff held a foreclosure sale of the parsonage on December 27, 1935, with Albany Mutual being the highest bidder.
The new church on Seventh Street was also almost lost when the Sheriff held a foreclosure sale on the building on June 14, 1937. First Pentecostal Church was high bidder at $7,300. However, the Certificate of Sale allowed the Trinity Lutherans a period of redemption.
Rosen noted that church members rallied to raise about $3,500. Land records show that the church took a new $6,400 mortgage with Albany Mutual on October 25, 1937 using the new church as collateral. On November 9, 1937, the Sheriff filed a Certificate of Redemption and deemed the June sale null and void.
At about the same time, the Trinity Lutherans sold the West Side church to Pillar of Fire Church in February 1938. In 1943, Albany Mutual sold the parsonage to Pillar of Fire Church, reuniting church and parsonage properties.
Current church holdings include a fourth lot, adjacent to the original three lots, which Pillar of Fire purchased in 1946 from the John Anderson estate. After attendance dwindled, the Pillar of Fire owners transferred the deeds to Landmark Apostolic Chapel in March 1976.
REVITALIZATION EFFORTS
That year, Laramie Jaycees spearheaded a community-wide drive to restore the church. About 100 people volunteered more than 3,000 hours and Laramie businesses provided materials worth thousands of dollars. Volunteers re-sanded and refinished floors and pews, re-plastered the ceiling, replaced broken windows, upgraded electrical and heating systems, painted inside and out, and installed a new bell in the steeple. The newly revitalized church was dedicated on July 4, 1976, nearly 50 years ago.
In 1989, new owner Emmanuel Apostolic Temple Church once again refurbished the rundown building. It later disbanded and the deed was conveyed in recent years to the current owner Apostolic Pentecostal Churches Inc., a Nebraska Corp.
Owners have boarded up windows and doors on the abandoned church and parsonage to protect them from vandalism. Wyoming laws exempt property taxes for religious institutions including parsonages. Laramie currently has no laws requiring maintenance of abandoned buildings.
The church is likely to be included in the pending National Register of Historic Places District nomination for Laramie's West Side Neighborhood. However, that designation, if successful, will not save the church. Other ways must be found if this Laramie landmark is to be saved.
By Jan Botkin Therkildsen
Editor’s Note: Jan Therkildsen is a member of the Albany County Historical Society Board who became interested in researching the history of this Scandinavian Lutheran church on Laramie’s West Side when she discovered that her son Tyler Therkildsen’s great-great grandparents, Denmark native Emil Therkildsen and Norway native Jennie Thobro Therkildsen, were married in the church on Sept. 29, 1885, just two months after the church was dedicated. She has since encountered several people in Laramie whose families have deep connections with the church and who hope to see the building saved for the community.
The Scandinavian Lutheran Church at 201 S. Pine St. in 1912 with men on the roof and in front, when the church was undergoing repairs after a lightning strike. At the time, the church appeared raised on a foundation, high enough to require steps up to the front doors. The church is now at ground level with only one small step in front. Laramie engineer Scott Morton believes the change is due to ground buildup over the years, partly due to ash and cinders from the railyards and from the coal-burning refinery, which was located north of the church where the Snowy Range Bridge is today. The 1891 parsonage is glimpsed behind the church.
Photo Credit: UW American Heritage Center, B. C. Buffum Collection
Inside the historic Scandinavian Lutheran Church in 1976, showing the original 1885 pews. In 1976, when the church was owned by Landmark Apostolic Chapel, 100 Laramie community volunteers stepped forward to refurbish and revitalize this old church inside and out, including sanding and refinishing the floors and pews.
Photo Credit: Laramie Sunday Boomerang, July 4, 1976, page 7
The historic old Scandinavian Lutheran Church and Parsonage along West Ivinson Avenue and Pine Street in the West Side Laramie neighborhood as they stand today. Immediate attention is needed if they are ever to be used again.
Photo Credit: Jan Botkin Therkildsen
Rev. Frederik Michael “F. M.” Andreason (1837-1913), first pastor of the Scandinavian Lutheran Church in Laramie. He organized the church in August and September 1884 and was pastor from 1884 through 1887. With the church building committee, he oversaw construction of the church, which was dedicated in July 1885.
Photo Credit: “Precious memories of the Andreason, Brandsberg and Tonneson families” by Lucille Lowry Andreason and Floyd Andreason, 1997, Volume 2