St. Mark's Episcopal Church - Anaconda

Anaconda grew quickly after Copper King Marcus Daly established it as his smelter town in 1883, but the communitys Episcopalians needed to wait seven years before they could lay the cornerstone for St. Marks Episcopal Church on October 21, 1890. Before then, they had depended on priests from Deer Lodge and Butte, or on visits of Bishop Richmond Leigh Brewer from Helena. Services were held in the Methodist Episcopal Church South building and later above Fosketts saloon. At the latter site, water for a baptism by the Rev. A. B. Howard of Deer Lodge once was supplied from downstairs, and in a beer mug. Even after having their own building, the congregation was dependent on the smelters fortunes, and St. Marks closed for some months in 1892 when the smelter was shut down. The buff sandstone for this Romanesque Revival church was quarried near Garrison. The original floor plan was that of a Latin cross except for the square entrance bell tower; and a brick one-story addition has squared off the space between transept and apse. From the NRHP Plaque