Lowell Heights-Olivet National Register Nomination and site plans

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United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 Lowell Heights-Olivet African Methodist Episcopal Church St. Joseph County, IN Name of Property County and State Sections 9-end page 14 safe (right side of photo 0010). The basement features a maple floor in a large fellowship hall under the auditorium. It includes a kitchen/pass-thru in its west wall and a raised stage for performances in its east wall (photos 0018, 0019, respectively). Toilet rooms also have their original wood partitions and doors (photo 0020). The only minor changes include a c. 1960 concrete block separation for classrooms in the basement in the transept wings (these probably were divided by curtains but became permanent with block. Many of the light fixtures also seem to be original. Another interesting feature of the church, in terms of its site planning, is the use of a mounded front grade to give it more of a presence, yet it's cut away behind the knoll (photo 0002). This allows the essentially three-story building to better fit its early suburban neighborhood location, something that presented itself more frequently as churches expanded into suburban locations in the early 20th century where before they had often found themselves in more urban settings in city and town commercial/civic areas. Frank G. Dillard (1881-1949), the architect, was countering the more commonly-accepted Akron Plan for church design. Dillard wrote articles and gave lectures about a more appropriate approach to church architecture in Post-WWI America. This was a time when congregations in many denominations were going through a building craze. Dillard favored the more traditional approach of narthex, nave, transept, and chancel with classrooms at the back rather than off the sanctuary with dividing walls of the Akron Plan. The Akron Plan is credited to Lewis Miller for his own church design in Akron, Ohio in 1867. Miller was an amateur architect and Sunday School teacher. His church, First Methodist Church of Akron, was completed in 1872. Miller’s plan placed the altar in one corner of the sanctuary with sections of pews that radiated out from that location. Children could also participate in services by the inclusion of large, movable screen walls at one end of the sanctuary. This provided the ability to close off classroom spaces as dictated by the flow of the service. Akron Plan floors are also often banked to provide better sightlines for congregants. Miller’s plan was used with great regularity as Methodist congregations grew and included Sunday Schools in what they offered during worship services in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Therefore, it is interesting to note that Lowell Heights, a Methodist Episcopal congregation, broke from the tradition of the Akron Plan in their new building. Though it could be argued that transepts and balconies offered some of the accommodations for Sunday School classes that the Akron Plan offered, but not formalized with classroom denotation. In 1921, through the Methodist Episcopal denomination, Frank Dillard issued an illustrated bulletin named “Better Rural Churches” in the hope that when church communities plan for new buildings, they take into consideration future growth over immediate resources. The publication included three designs by Dillard. One was the conversion of a one-room church in Lakeville, Ohio into a community hall and addition of a sanctuary and entry tower. Another was for a large church in Cimmaron, New Mexico designed in the Mission Style. The third design was a recommended prototype design for a small church with a large, front gable, side entry towers, and transept/bays all in the Tudor Revival style. It is remarkably similar to the Lowell Heights church. Architectural services were offered through the publication from both the