From Navajo hogans in northern Arizona to St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, the world is home to a wide range of places of worship. We once drove by a tiny roadside chapel near Austin, Minnesota, in which it would have been difficult to shoehorn more than a dozen worshippers. In Europe we strolled through huge cathedrals that could welcome thousands. During decades of travel we thought we had seen just about every type of worship facility.

Then we visited Green Lake, Wisconsin.

Green Lake is a small community in Central Wisconsin where part- and full-time residents enjoy a quiet lifestyle near the state’s deepest natural inland lake. Winter months can be brutal, but summer days are heaven to those of us who live in the South. It was in Green Lake we stumbled across an unusual type of church: a railway carriage called a “chapel car” designed for worship on the rails.

Getting the Gospel on Track

Inspiration for the first American chapel car is generally credited to Episcopal Bishop William David Walker of North Dakota. During a late-1880s trip to Russia, Bishop Walker came across three connected train cars used for worship on the Siberian Railroad. The cars carried printed materials and sacraments to the thousands of people in sparsely populated Siberia. Instead of bringing people to the church, the chapel cars brought a church to the people.

Upon returning to the states Bishop Walker contracted with the Pullman Palace Car Company to build a train car that included a meeting room plus small areas for cooking and sleeping. Church of the Advent: Cathedral Car of North Dakota, was completed in November of 1890 at which time it began being used in mission work for North Dakota railroad employees. The service was discontinued after a year when Bishop Walker moved out of state.

Following completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869, the trickle of people moving west became a mass migration as easterners and immigrants sought a better life in the West. The migration resulted in new towns springing up along the tracks. Many, if not most, were populated with numerous saloons but few churches.

Taking their Message on the Rails

Dr. Wayland Hoyt, a Baptist minister from Minnesota, traveled west on more than one occasion with his brother, train executive Colgate Hoyt. During these trips the two men experienced an up-close look at the “Wild West.” In previous years the minister had observed Sunday school classes held in train cars along rail sidings in Minneapolis. Dr. Hoyt was able to convince his brother, along with John D. Rockefeller, James B. Colgate, E.J. Barney, and several other wealthy businessmen to cover the expense of constructing the first Baptist chapel car. The car, built to Dr. Hoyt’s specifications by Barney & Smith Car Company of Dayton, Ohio, was completed in spring 1891.

From 1890 and 1915 three existing train cars were refitted and ten new chapel cars were constructed. The Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan used two refitted rail cars between the years 1891 and 1898 to reach people in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The Catholic Church Extension Society acquired three chapel cars, the first of which was a reconstructed Pullman car named St. Anthony after the saint of the lost that remained in service until 1919. The Catholic Church’s two other carriages were built as chapel cars, one serving the Midwest and Northwest from 1912 to 1930, and the other traveling mostly in the South. These two chapel cars are now property of a private railroad in Wells, Michigan.

The American Baptist Publication Society (ABPS) acquired seven chapel cars between 1891 and 1915: Evangel (1891-1924), Emmanuel ((1993-1942), Glad Tidings (1894-1926), Good Will (1896-1938), Messenger of Peace (1898-1948), Herald of Hope (1900-1935), and Grace (1915-1946). Chapel cars visited most states with the exception of those in the Northeast.

The Life and Times of Grace

During our visit to Green Lake we happened onto the last chapel car constructed by the Barney & Smith Car Company for the APBS. Money for its construction was donated by the Conway/Birch Publication Family in memory of family member, Grace, for whom the car was named. This was only the second chapel car made of steel and its interior has the appearance of a tiny church. Grace is fitted with a golden-oak interior, pews, and Gothic arches. Like previous chapel cars, it included an organ donated by the owner of Estey Organ Company.

Grace was considered the finest of the chapel cars, in part because of its full-size bed (others had bunk beds), bath, and a kitchen equipped with a two-burner stove and ice box. The car included a free lending library that proved a big hit when visiting small communities.

Three passenger cars of eastern Baptists accompanied Grace on her cross-country journey to dedication ceremonies at the ABPS Convention in Los Angeles. From there Grace traveled to the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco to be placed on display and seen by thousands of visitors. Following the Exposition the chapel car spent a number of years in areas of California populated by railroad workers, lumbermen, oilmen, and members of the military. In 1923 Grace traveled to Las Vegas where she remained for two years before moving on to communities in California, Utah, and Wyoming.

The End of the Track

During WWII Grace visited southern Utah to offer religious services to war plant employees. At war’s end the plants closed and missionaries were able to travel by car on improved roads resulting in little need for Grace or the other chapel cars. By then many new churches had been constructed and chapel cars were serving mostly as living quarters for their missionaries, not as places of worship.

In 1946 the American Baptist Assembly in Green Lake, Wisconsin, decided to establish a memorial to honor the work of chapel cars and their missionaries. Assembly members wanted an actual car for the memorial and made a special request for Grace. After 31 years of service, Grace was moved to what is now Green Lake Conference Center, where she is open to the public and still used, on occasion, for services.

Kay and David Scott are authors of “Complete Guide to the National Park Lodges” (Globe Pequot). They live in Valdosta, Georgia.