Coppin Chapel awarded Cultural Affairs grant

Fort Dodge's historic Coppin Chapel will soon see some improvements thanks to a grant from the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs.

On Monday, the department announced a $12,084 grant for the First Avenue South church. Built in 1894 as St. Olaf Norwegian Lutheran Church, the building has served congregants of the African Methodist Episcopal Church since 1919. The grant will be used to hire a preservation architect to assess its condition and develop a plan for rehabilitation.

"The history of it is so significant," said Sherry Washington, president of Fort Dodge's NAACP chapter. "It has always been in the center of the African American community here in Fort Dodge and abroad. It was considered a prestigious church."

And though the membership has dwindled over the years to a small congregation, Washington said the church's building remained very active until the pandemic, hosting meetings for the NAACP, Pleasant Valley Awareness Committee, and many other community dinners and events. The chapel's services, suspended for most of 2020, have tentatively resumed.

Washington said that the grant, facilitated with Main Street Fort Dodge's help, should help the church replace its broken windows and repair ceilings as a starting point for restoration. Until the pandemic, Washington said community choir programs helped maintain funding for the church.

Along with its history, the building has a lot of memories in it.

"As a child, I was a member of Second Baptist, but we also attended Coppin Chapel programs. The windows back then were stained glass," Washington said. "Those were some of the most beautiful windows you would see."

The windows subsequently were replaced with regular glass, and are now boarded on the east side.

"When Jesse Jackson was running for president, he came through (the church)," said lifelong member Julia Naylor, of Fort Dodge. "We've lost a lot of (congregants) since then. But we're still hanging tough."

Jackson was the second African American to run for president in 1984, after Shirley Chisholm.

The church was one of nine Iowa sites to receive a total of $108,284 in new grants for historic preservation projects.

The State Historic Preservation Office, a bureau of the Department of Cultural Affairs, awarded the grants through its Certified Local Government program, which encourages preservation and partnerships at the local level.

"The preservation and reuse of our state's historic assets help Iowans create an authentic sense of place, which energizes communities, stimulates economic growth and boosts quality of life," said Chris Kramer, Department of Cultural Affairs director. "Placemaking is an important factor that businesses, families and young professionals consider when they're deciding where to set up shop or settle down to live and work."

The Certified Local Government program is one of the largest of its kind in the nation and is administered by the State Historic Preservation Office in conjunction with the National Park Service.