Olivet Presbyterian Church
Life Span: 1866-1872
Location: Wabash avenue, near Fourteenth street
Architect: L. B. Dixon
- John C. W. Bailey’s Chicago City Directory for 1867
Olivet (Presbyterian) Church, New School. Wabash av cor Fourteenth
Chicago Tribune, December 29, 1865
Olivet Presbyterian Church.—A very handsome church is in course of erection on Wabash avenue near Fourteenth street, for the Olivet Presbyterian congregation. It is of the Norman style of architecture, and composed of pressed bricks with stone facings and trimmings. The building has a frontage of seventy-five feet by one hundred and twenty-seven in depth, and stands forty-four feet back from the street. The main entrance is on the avenue in an ornamental tower eighty feet high, surmounted by a spire seventy feet in height, having elegant pinnacles at the base. This lower projects eight feet from the building, and the entrance is by three doors, reached by a flight of eight cut stone steps. The space between the building and the street is to be tastefully laid out with grass plats and terraces. The main audience room is fifty-nine feet by eighty-four. The pews are to be divided by four aisles, and will accommodate seven hundred (700) people. The light enters the edifice in the day through ten stained glass windows in the side, and at night the room is lighted by gas jets with reflectors from the centre of the ceiling. The ceiling is to be supported by grained arches in the sides and will leave a circular paneled center, where the gas jets will be arranged. Its height will be thirty-six feet under the side aisles and forty-four under the center. On one side of the pulpit will be an organ, and on the other side an imitation one. The basement will contain a ball fifty-eight feet by fifty-nine for the use of the Sabbath School, lectures, etc. There are also here situated other smaller rooms. The estimated cost of the enterprise is $40,000. L. B. Dixon is the architect.
Chicago Tribune, September 26, 1871
The Second Presbyterian Church having formally united with the Olivet Presbyterian Church, and the action ratifled by the Presbytery of Chicago, notice was given on Sunday that a memorial service would be beld in the Second Church on Sunday night, at which all the old members of the church are invited to be present. On Tuesday evening, October 3, a reunion of the old and new members of the church will be held at the church, after which the church will be closed and the building sold, or the material used as far as possible in the construction of the new church.
Chicago Tribune, February 25, 1872
Sale of the Olivet Presbyterian Property.
We find the following interesting item o Church news in the columns of The Pulpit of yesterday:
The Olivet Presbyterian Church property, which has been so long in the market, has at last been disposed of to the Wabash Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church. It will be remembered that, just previous to the fire, the Second Presbyterian Church united with the Olivet Church, the terms of the union being that the newly-organized church, without coming into possession of the Olivet Church property, should have the privilege of using the building until they could erect a new one on some more central and favorable site. Meanwhile the former Trustees of the Olivet Church were to dispose of its property and pay off with the sum thus realized a large floating indebtedness. The fire changed the face of affairs, so that the Second Church, which had already begun to lay the foundation of its new building to be erected on the corner of Wabash Avenue and Twentieth street, cancelled its contracts and discontinued all work on the structure. The Wabash Avenue Methodist Church having been turned “out of doors” by Uncle Sam, united temporarily with the Trinity Church, with which society, until the meeting of the next Conference, they will remain. But having to provide for their future home, they began negotiations with the Trustees of the Olivet Church, who were already receiving bids from the Jewish Society, and after considerable “dickering,” they have just concluded the purchase of the property, paying for it $30,000. They are to take possession on the first day of next November, leaving the present occupants in quiet possession until that time. The plans of the Second Church are not yet fully matured. At their last business meeting they voted to sell the lot bought last summer on the corner of Twentieth street and Wabash avenue. This lot has a frontage of 110 feet on Wabash avenue, and cost 110,000, the present valuation being considerably wore. By a resolution, the Trustees were empowered to buy a lot on any of the avenues, east of Wabash, and between Fourteenth and Twentieth street. They are already negotiating with several parties, but no purchase has been made, although it is expected to begin building very early in the spring. The building will be substantially the same as that proposed before the fire, being according to the plans prepared by Architect Renwick, of New York. It was to cost $100,000, but as the purchase of property on Michigan avenue will necessitate a greater expenditure than was originally contemplated for the land, the character of the building will be some-what changed, and its cost reduced.
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