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Description
This circa 1900 photograph shows a gathering crowd at the entrance to the Westminster Presbyterian Church at Sixth and L Streets. Built in 1867, the wooden structure had a frontage of 38 feet and a depth of 60 with a cost eclipsing 10,000 dollars. However, between 1886 and 1904 the congregation did not grow, holding at a roster numbering 316. One idea for increasing numbers was to build a new, more modern church, in a better spot and designed in such a way that would better meet the needs of membership. Minnie Stevenson, the daughter of the Minister of Westminster R.M. Stevenson, called the Sixth and L building “a rather primitive structure with feeble echoes of Greek influence as imagined by the builders—a common clerical pattern of the epoch [and] only a stone’s throw down L Street was the red light district, a region so flagrantly disreputable that self-respecting citizens did not enter it.” The congregation worshipped at the spot until 1904, at which time it moved to its Thirteenth and K location. By 1910, church membership had surged to 427.
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