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 16 examples like St. Stanislaus Catholic Church built in 1898 to very simple examples like St. Mary’s Polish National Church built in the Late Gothic Revival style in 1915. Several examples are comparable to Lowell Heights Methodist Episcopal Church and date to about the same time period it was constructed. These include Epworth Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church (1911), St. Adalbert Catholic Church (1923-1926), Grace Evangelical Church (1926), St. Peter’s Church (1927), Zion Evangelical Church (1930), and Emmaus Evangelical Lutheran Church (1938). Most of these examples include square entry/bell towers and steeply-pitched gabled parapets. Lowell Heights is different in that it diminishes the importance of the bell/entry tower and gives the parishioners a formal entry in its gabled-front wall upon climbing a step set of steps. Most of the South Bend examples seem to be influenced either by their denominational preference for building arrangement, such as the Catholic churches, or by the Akron Plan. A few late examples of the Late Gothic Revival style include Our Redeemer Lutheran Church (1954) on 29th Street and the First Evangelical United Brethren Church on Inwood Drive (1951). The latter became home to the merged congregation with Lowell Heights in 1968 to for Evangel Heights. Both of these buildings use Bedford stone and have similar entry/bell towers. Lowell Heights & Olivet A.M.E. Congregations The Lowell Heights Methodist Episcopal congregation had formed more than twenty years prior to the construction of their building in 1923 and saw tremendous growth in the first decades of the 20th century, in part because of spiritual revival movements in the denomination and city- wide. The congregation took its name from the village on the high east bank of the St. Joseph River, known as Lowell Heights, later annexed into South Bend. The congregation formed from “cottage prayer meetings” held in 1899 in homes on the east side of South Bend as part of revival efforts being undertaken by the First Methodist Episcopal Church of the city. These prayer meetings were formalized into Sunday School classes by April 1899 and a building was erected that summer. The simple frame building was built on the southwest corner of E. Miner and N. Frances Streets for a cost of $1400 and the first service was held the last Sunday of September in 1899 with a membership of 26. Their first church, with simple Gothic Revival features, was formally dedicated with a service in July 1903, when the congregation burned the mortgage held on the building. Over 400 attended the service. In 1907, revival services were conducted and the congregation grew rapidly. An addition to the building and a parsonage were constructed in 1912. The growing congregation numbered more than 100 by 1917. In 1920, plans were made for a new building and in 1921, four lots were purchased at the corner of Almond Court and Notre Dame Avenue. The congregation raised over $20,000 from other city churches and in 1923, a contract for $42,000 to build the new building was made with the Hay-Weaver Company. It was designed by Frank G. Dillard, architect in the denomination’s Chicago office. The new church was dedicated on December 9, 1923. The pastor during the construction and dedication was Reverend William Brandon. While a new parsonage and community hall were originally envisioned, the hall was never constructed. A parsonage was built c. 1955 on the east side of Notre Dame Avenue. A merger of the Methodist Episcopal denomination with the Evangelical United Brethren denomination resulted in the merger of Lowell Heights M.E. Church with the First Evangelical United Brethren Church (built in 1951)