First Presbyterian/St. Mary's Church

Stillwater's First Church

Stillwater’s first church congregation was First Presbyterian Church, established in 1849. In August 1851, the congregation built its first church structure, at Third and Chestnut Streets. The lumber came from the original Stillwater Mill led by John McKusick.^[1]

The church was the site of a memorable 1856 concert by two internationally known musicians, Norwegian violinist Ole Bull and Spanish-Italian soprano Adelina Patti. When they appeared in Stillwater, Bull’s career was well established, while Patti was 12 years old and just starting a career that would last more than 60 years. The concert apparently received only a tepid response from Stillwater’s lumberjacks and other residents, but Bull himself was taken by Stillwater. During his visit, Bull purchased 20 undeveloped lots in the northwestern corner of the city (near the present-day Good Samaritan nursing home and Stonebridge Apartments). Bull also “stayed for a fortnight and went fishing.” Bull sold few, if any, of his lots before the real estate market collapsed in 1858.^[2]

The Presbyterians soon outgrew this first church and built another at the corner of Third and Myrtle Streets. In 1858 the original church was sold to a member of the church board, Edward G. Pugsley, who turned the church into Stillwater’s first public event hall. It was “used for entertainments of all kinds, and was in its day very popular.” In 1863, it was occupied briefly by the newly-formed Stillwater public school district, which determined that it was too small and “could not be made comfortable for a winter school.”^[3]

In 1865, just weeks after the Civil War ended, Pugsley sold the church and a parsonage to Catholic Bishop Thomas Grace, who established a German Catholic parish there. The church was named Immaculate Conception, and became more commonly known as St. Mary’s. St. Mary’s remained at this location until the 1880, when the parish moved its worship to the upper story of a brick schoolhouse it had previously constructed on South Fifth Street. A few years later, St. Mary’s sold the old Third and Chestnut church and began construction of its present church next to the schoolhouse.^[4]

After St. Mary’s departed, the old church building began a series of less-glamorous purposes. It became a saloon known as “The Last Chance”, followed a meat market, a carpenter shop, and a paint shop. In 1900, after several years of vacancy, the church was deemed unsafe and demolished.^[5]

In 1907, Harry Farmer built an auto garage on the site. Later decades saw a gas station on the location, and eventually the present multi-tenant commercial building.^[6]