During Black Diamond’s early days, there was only one church in town. It was located across from the elementary school where the old fire station now stands. Morgan Morgans, the Superintendent of the Black Diamond Coal Mining Company was said to have declared that one was sufficient, and it was called the Congregational Church. Different denominations shared the same facility on alternating Sundays. The First Presbyterian Church of Black Diamond was organized in 1910 with 66 charter members. Their original frame church was dedicated Dec. 17, 1914 and situated where the original City Hall now stands on Lawson Street. Next to it was the teachers’ cottage where single women who taught school were housed.
The original Presbyterian building was a large wooden structure with an entrance designed to resemble a castle tower. On January 5, 1959 at 4:20 am, it caught fire on a cold and windy night with patchy snow on the ground. The wood structure burned so hot that flaming shingles sent sparks nearly a mile west to Morganville, while windows cracked in homes across the street. A new church building, shown here was erected 400 feet further east up Lawson Street. The new church was built near the entrance of the No. 2 Mine, the second underground coal mine in Black Diamond. Prior to construction, mounds of discarded coal were removed from the property by Palmer Coking Coal and rewashed in their nearby preparation plant at Mine #11.
With membership dwindling, the chapter was no longer considered viable so was closed by the Seattle Presbytery on May 1, 2008. Today, the building is leased to Imagine Church under the leadership of Robert and Annie Wachter. This 1961 photo, plus research comes courtesy of JoAnne Matsumura, an Issaquah historian.
