The Parking Lot That Never Was: How Neighbors Saved the Old Church

At the corner of Fourth Avenue and William Street in Post Falls stands a pale gray church with a tall steeple, round windows, and pointed Gothic arches. It looks like a single building, and for more than a century it has served as a single gathering place. In truth, it has always been two churches, and the story of how they came together, and how neighbors later refused to let them be torn down, is one of the clearest examples of community history in Post Falls.

The older half began in 1890, when the First Methodist Episcopal Church was built at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Post Street. The second half followed in 1899, when the Presbyterian Church was built at the corner of Second Avenue and Henry Street. In 1921, the Reverend Nathan Fiske encouraged the two congregations to combine into one community assembly. Drawn by horses, the two buildings were moved to the corner where they stand today and joined together. The combined congregation called itself the Community Presbyterian Church, with the former Methodist building serving as the sanctuary and the former Presbyterian building serving as a Christian education wing. The National Park Service later described the joined building as an example of Gothic Revival and vernacular church architecture, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 7, 1984.

In time, the congregation outgrew the old building and built a new one beside it. The plan for the old church was simple and final. It would be demolished, and a parking lot would be built in its place. That plan nearly carried the day, but the demolition process was halted when project manager John Rodkey judged the church to be structurally sound and of historical significance. The building then caught the attention of Susan Jacklin, who rallied support to save it. In 1998, she formed Community Building Partners Inc., and that association purchased the church and the land it sat on. The building was renamed the Old Church, and a second life began to take shape.

The restoration that followed lasted nearly ten years and drew on more than a million dollars in donations. It was carried forward by volunteers as much as by money. Contemporary reporting described one woman refinishing a dozen or more choir chairs, a man volunteering to make a wooden copy of the church's splintering steeple, and neighbors calling with offers of glass to replace broken panes. In 2002, the Idaho Historic Preservation Council presented Susan Jacklin with its Orchid Award in recognition of her drive to restore the church, after Post Falls Historical Society member Kim Brown nominated her and the project for the honor. The work was understood from the start as a community project, not only a church project.

In May 2005, the Old Church reopened as the Jacklin Arts and Cultural Center. In 2021, the center celebrated the 100th anniversary of the building in its current location. Today its Celebration Hall, galleries, classrooms, and kitchen host concerts, exhibitions, classes, weddings, and gatherings throughout the year, under a mission of sharing the arts and the historic building with the community. For residents at Black Bay, a short drive across town, it remains a familiar landmark with an unfamiliar lesson. Post Falls did not keep this piece of its past by accident. Neighbors kept it on purpose, one repaired chair, one copied steeple, and one saved building at a time.