![firstcongchurchsummer](http://ss.sites.mtu.edu/cca/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/hr_FirstCongChurchSummer.jpg)
by Justin Beckman.
Architect: Holabird & Roche
Location: 1st and Tunnel Streets, Lake Linden
Built: 1886
Contractors: Emery & McCurdy
![firstcongchurchsummer](http://ss.sites.mtu.edu/cca/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/hr_FirstCongChurchSummer-241x300.jpg)
The First Congregational Church of Lake Linden was built in 1887 for a largely Scottish group of copper-milling company officials and local businessmen. The building was dedicated in February of 1887, at a final cost of $8,325.1 That summer a fire destroyed a dozen city blocks of Lake Linden, leaving 300 families homeless. The church was able to house eight families in the basement for several months.
The church is a pine-shingled, frame building on a foundation of coursed mine rock. On the north end of the sharp gabled roof sits a pyramid-capped tower. Two clipped dormers with lancet windows break the roof line.2
The front porch, with a spindlework frieze, shelters two double doors. Between them is intricate patterning of fish-scale and flat-edged shingles divided into sections by vertical and horizontal stick work. There are six pointed-arch stained-glass windows on each side.
Through the front doors, the foyer gives way to a stairway to the pastor’s room down to the meeting hall and kitchen. Curved wooden balustrades frame the staircases. The sanctuary features a herringbone-patterned hardwood ceiling. Minor alterations include the removal of the side-wall light fixtures and the covering of the original plaster wall finish with early 20th-century wallpaper.
The First Congregational Church is now owned by the Houghton County Historical Society. This Stick Style church, unusual in the Copper Country, has been excellently preserved.
![firstcongchurchwinter](http://ss.sites.mtu.edu/cca/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/hr_FirstCongChurchWinter-1024x768.jpg)
![firstcongchurchdetail](http://ss.sites.mtu.edu/cca/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/hr_FirstCongChurchDetail-1024x768.jpg)
Buildings by Holabird & Roche in the Copper Country
Notes
- Eckert, Buildings of Michigan, 478.
- “First Congregational Church of Lake Linden,” National Register of Historic Places Registration Form (U.S. Department of Interior, National Park Service, 1980).