The Sheldon Jackson Memorial Chapel

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, July 26, 2025

1. The Sheldon Jackson Memorial Chapel Marker

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West.

America,

Mountains,

Hemisphere,

World,

Anglosphere.

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, July 26, 2025

2. The Sheldon Jackson Memorial Chapel Marker

The marker is located near the southeast [right] corner of the building.

From the National Register Nomination prepared by Floyd Patterson, 10/19/1976:
In 1870, Sheldon Jackson was named Superintendent of Missions for a vast area stretching from Mexico to Canada and Nevada to Nebraska. He established the Rocky Mountain Presbyterian in Denver, and through the columns of this newspaper, he was able to reach a large audience. But Jackson reached his congregations principally by establishing his churches where people were establishing their towns.

Like many early missionaries, Jackson's energy seems to have been in exhaustible. It has been estimated that during his career, he may have traveled over a million miles by every means from burro to cattle ship. Jackson came to Fairplay in 1872, midway in his illustrious career. Shortly after his arrival, he organized South Park Community Church. The building was constructed in 1874, and dedication ceremonies were held in the high mountain community on October 4 of that year. While other Victorian gothic churches exist in Colorado, the South Park Community Church remains an unchanged and particularly good example of the small white churches that years ago formed the focal point of many mountain Colorado communities.

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, July 26, 2025

3. Sheldon Jackson Memorial Chapel / South Park Community Church (southwest elevation)

From the National Register Nomination:  The South Park Community church is a rectangular board and batten structure with a gable roof and an elaborate bell tower. There is a single brick chimney on the right or southeast side. The building is an excellent local example of High Victorian carpenter gothic architecture. The front facade is dominated by two plain glass lancet windows which flank a lancet door set in an enclosed portico. Above the door is a circular ornament made entirely of wood and obviously intended to serve as a rose window. There are three lancet windows with plain glass on each side of the building. Like those in the front facade, each window is set in a wooden frame.
The entire building is tied together into a unified whole using vertical lines and lancet arches. The board and batten siding leads up to a decorative wooden pattern that forms diminutive lancet arches. This is topped by a heavy wooden moulding ornament and by small decorative brackets appearing under the eaves on all sides of the structure.
Constructed of wood, the tower is supported by two ornamented pendants which frame a lancet arch. A second such arch is created by the decorative moulding under the roof line of the tower. This arch forms part of the overall design and also frames the bell which was first hung in 1875. The tower is topped by what might be termed a wooden finial.

Excerpt:  Sheldon Jackson (1834–1909) was a Presbyterian minister, missionary, and political leader. During this career he travelled about one million miles and established more than one hundred missions and churches, mostly in the Western United States. He performed extensive missionary work in Colorado and the Alaska Territory.
Jackson graduated in 1855 from Union College in Schenectady, New York, and from the Presbyterian Church's Princeton Theological Seminary in 1858. Jackson traveled as a missionary throughout the American West. With the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, a huge territory was opened to him. In the summer of 1869, Jackson went on a missionary tour using the railroad and stage lines, establishing a church a day.

Excerpt:  Built in 1874, the church was founded by Presbyterian missionary Sheldon Jackson. Its board and batten siding and lancet windows are typical of Carpenter Gothic churches. Originally the Sheldon Jackson Memorial Chapel, the structure is

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now the South Park Community (Presbyterian) Church. On November 22, 1977, the church was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

(by Thomas J. Noel)   Excerpt:  The Reverend Sheldon Jackson, an illustrious pioneer Presbyterian circuit rider, built this splendid board-and-batten example of Carpenter's Gothic. Lancet arches form the windows and doorway and grace the open bell tower. The steeply pitched roof stretches skyward in a lacy, vertical composition. This tiny Gothic Revival gem is enhanced by a well-kept garden and picnic pavilion behind a jacal fence of tree branches. The pavilion faithfully replicates the steep bell tower with its dripping bargeboard, hexagonal cap, and finial. Of twenty-two Colorado churches founded by Sheldon Jackson, this is one of the finest of the sixteen still standing. In 1877 Jackson moved to Alaska, where he achieved further fame as a pioneer circuit rider and church builder.

Excerpt:  Constructed in 1874, the small white painted, board and batten church is an excellent, well-preserved example of the Carpenter Gothic style. It includes lancet windows, extensive wood trim, and an intricately detailed bell tower. The congregation was organized by Sheldon Jackson, a Presbyterian missionary who was active throughout the Colorado frontier. Colorado State Register of Historic Places Site № 5PA.26.