The Central Congregational Church is a historic church on Central Square in

Galesburg, Illinois Galesburg is a city in Knox County, Illinois, United States. The city is northwest of Peoria. At the 2010 census, its population was 32,195. It is the county seat of Knox County and the principal city of the Galesburg Micropolitan Statistical ...

. The church was built from 1897 to 1898 to serve Galesburg's newly united Congregational church. Galesburg's two congregational churches formed in the 1850s after separating from the town's

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

church; the two churches united in 1895 after one church began to collapse during a service. Galesburg architect C.E. Gottschalk designed the church in the Richardsonian Romanesque style; his design features a bell tower with a pyramidal roof, numerous turrets, a wide stained glass rose window above the entrance, and detailed stonework. The brown

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

used to construct the church was imported from Marquette,

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

. The church's bell was formed from the bells used in the two Congregational churches before their union. In 1912, the church acquired an organ built by the M. P. Moller Company. The church was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

on September 30, 1976.

References

Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois Romanesque Revival church buildings in Illinois Churches completed in 1898 Churches in Knox County, Illinois Congregational churches in Illinois National Register of Historic Places in Knox County, Illinois 1898 establishments in Illinois 1890s establishments in Illinois Galesburg, Illinois {{Illinois-church-stub