The Little White Church

Elbe, WA

At 18'x24', the Elbe Evangelical Lutherische Kirche, was once listed by Ripley's as the smallest church in America.

Built by local town folks in 1906, the church -- and town was founded  by immigrants from the Elbe River region in Germany. The church has a seating capacity of 46, which is pretty much the entire population of Elbe.

Speaking of which, if you go into the store and pronounce it
"ELB," as in, "Nice town, this ELB,"  you will be immediately pegged as a tourist.

Of course, considering there's not many people in Elbe, almost everyone is pegged as a tourist!  Pronounce it  "ELBEE"

Originally affiliated with the Old Ohio Synod (Old German), the church was founded in 1893, with services held in the town hall and in private homes.

The church is only open one or two days a month, while at other times, the church's interior can be seen from a viewing platform located outside one of the windows.

Today, a woman and her son spent a quite moment before driving 19 miles up the highway to Mt. Rainier National Park.

The church is staffed entirely by volunteers, like Art Bowen. "A bunch of us meet in early Spring to decide what days we will come up and show people around, " he said. "But, being as there's only a few of us, it  works out to about one day a year for each person." "Pretty easy work," Bowen added with a laugh.

(right), Bowen tells the story of this pew to a man who stopped on his way to the mountain. "It's the only original one here, " Bowen said. " They were all carved by a local man, probably a logger ."

The steeple is 46' tall. Inside, the  bell came from one of the old steam locomotives that used to pass in front of the church with their loads of logs. These days, on those same tracks, antique logging engines haul tourists.

The church, on the National Register of Historic Places is administered by the Historic Elbe Evangelical Lutheran Church Association.

The church is open on the third Wednesday of each month throughout the year, and services are held  on the 3rd Sunday of each month, March through November at 2:30pm

Originally a logging town, Elbe sits on the banks of the Nisqually River on Highway 7, the main route to Mt. Rainier.  From Seattle, the drive to Elbe takes roughly two hours, one hour from Tacoma or Olympia.

 

Text and photographs by  Carl Cook © 2002. All rights reserved. Photographs protected by Digimarc.

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