Presbyterian Church
3rd St. and Ave. E, Beaver City, OKEvery western boom town could count a saloon and a dance hall among its earliest structures, and certainly Beaver City was no exception. (Indeed, if any one thing were to distinguish its first saloon and first dance hall it would have to be, not the fact of their construction, but the building materials that went into them. They were made of sod!)
But every western boom town could also count a place of worship among its early buildings. If it was not always constructed as promptly as the others, it was usually constructed more substantially. And Beaver City's first church attests to this. The first in all of No Man's Land, it was built well. And it still stands today, in use regularly, a fitting memorial to the sturdy pioneers who opened this harsh region nearly a century ago.
By 1887 Beaver City was nearly five years old and the Rev. R. M. Overstreet decided it was past time the raw, frontier town had a church, He organized the First Presbyterian congregation and began a building fund drive. With major support from the denomination's missionary board in the East the church was finally completed as something of a trail blazer, Aside from Indian Mission structures -- that is, churches built as part of the missionary effort among the various Indian tribes in what is now Oklahoma -- the Beaver City church is believed to be one of the first, if not the first, erected by and for a non-Indian congregation.
The church, modified only slightly over the years, has been in continuous use from the beginning. Because of its age, constant service, and role in the development of the western frontier, this claim for National Register status is presented.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.