Saugatuck Churches

Location: Various locations, Saugatuck
Date: 1861-1925

THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
Hoffman and Griffith Streets, 1861
Saugatuck’s first church, founded in 1861, was the site of the village’s first rally in support of the Union side of the Civil War. The structure was of plain wood clapboards with tall windows, and the pews were rough-hewn wood. Subsequent alterations and additions have been numerous.

ALL SAINTS EPISCOPAL CHURCH
Hoffman and Grand Streets, 1874
A Michigan capitalist-politician of his time founded this church in 1868. It was built by local shipbuilders of wood from the nearby forests in what is called “Carpenter Gothic” style, a way that architects used the skills of local carpenters to decorate the structure. Features such as board and batten exterior, decorated vergeboards, wood buttresses, and pointed windows were built to mirror the style of the cathedrals of Europe.

THE METHODIST CHURCH
St. Joseph and Main Streets (later moved to Griffith and Mason Streets), 1881
Known for its revival services in the 1880s, this tall “Country Gothic” style structure had seating for 175. It adopted a more stylish Arts & Crafts facade when it was moved to the new location in 1915.

THE REFORMED CHURCH
Holland Street, 1868
This building housed a rather short-lived congregation started by H. D. Moore, the nearby lumber mill owner, who probably intended it as a church for his mill workers. The structure was built in a simplified Greek Revival manner and was described at the time as “an ornament to the place.”

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CHURCH
12 Main Street (Village Square), 1925
Christian Science lectures were being given in Saugatuck as early as 1891. Howard Cheney was a Chicago architect who was project construction architect for the famous Chicago Tribune building. Here he created a Colonial Revival building in the finest of classical form.