09/28/2023
The United Church of Eskridge is no longer an active church. However it has been given a new life, that embraces its original purpose, yet keeps the essence of what it was intended.
Tressa and Stephen Green purchased the property a year ago and have transformed it into a beautiful event center. Anything that was left in the church that is church related has been saved, and re-purposed in multiple ways. Thus church used to boast three expansive rows of pews with two sides isles and two middle isles. When the church family decided to distribute items from the church, to different community members and family members of former donators, from the original build of this churh, clear back from 1923 to present. Many church items were removed, even the pews were donated to another active church to enhance their building and make it more accessible and usable for their members. With that being said, several partial pews still remain and 5-6 fully intact stayed. Those partial pews are still saved and being re-purposed, and will eventually find, a craftsman that can create end caps to match the remaining pews and they will be put back into service. This church had a beautiful flowing sloping floor down to the dais and that floor has been raised to make it level which puts a whole new dynamic on the church and lightens up the interior because of the floor choices. The gorgeous leaded stain glass windows have been kept and they still put off a beautiful glow inside and out. The evening and night time lighting reminding me of the many Christmas Eve services we used to have there when I was a child through adulthood. Each little individual room in the church is finding new purpose and value including every book that was left behind, that wasn’t disseminated or donated to other people. They have been put in a new library room. They can be read, borrowed, whatever needs to be per Tressa. It’s quite different for the times that we live in now.
I’m very grateful that the church has been saved and so much of its inner essence and outer ambience have been saved. Those of you that have been members of this church or had family members that were in this church. Please feel free to contact Tressa on Facebook through their new page as it has been renamed the “Bell Tower Event Center”. I’ve spoken with Tressa several times and she said that the event center would still be available for weddings and funerals and she’s a very generous and kind woman so feel free to call her or contact her, so we can continue to enjoy the staple of the Eskridge community, that so many of our forefathers worked so hard to preserve and maintain. Those from our past made this beautiful building. We needed this staple of the community saved and she did it. Thank you Tressa and Steve for all your hard work and dedication to detail for saving our beautiful history yet keeping so much of it’s history in tact. Something we don’t always see in this new advancing and fast moving pace of the world we now live in.
—Marsha Cook—
