Rowena Methodist Church

The Rowena Methodist Church located in rural South Dakota was a worship space for many over the course of its hundred plus years of service. From Sunday school in dugout basements to attempted infiltrations by the Ku Klux Klan, this church has a deep and rich history.

The Rowena Methodist Church in Rowena, South Dakota, held its first worship service on February 10, 1903. This date, however, was not the beginning of this congregation. Many years back, in 1874, the church began by holding Sunday school services in the dugout basement of Madison and Elizabeth Webster’s home. In the winter of 1874 to 1875, a traveling preacher, known as circuit riding minister named Reverend G.D Hook, visited the area and gave his first sermon in a local home. Because of low population density in rural areas, these circuit riding ministers of various denominations gave sermons in homes and schools rather than in churches. In the 1880s, after the city of Rowena was founded, these services were held in the Rowena Town hall for four years. In 1901, plans to construct a physical church for this community were brought into the works and, on February 8, 1903, the church was officially complete and ready for services. 

The church resided in Rowena, a small town located in southeast South Dakota near the Iowa and Minnesota state borders with origins in the rock quarrying industry. It lied just east of Sioux Falls and south of Brandon. The land that contains what is today the town of Rowena was bought by a man named Thomas Ryan on July 27, 1888. A few months later, the city was officially platted and named Rowena after the heroine in Sir Walter Scott's novel titled Ivanhoe. The city of Rowena was home to a post office, dairy creamery, town hall, railway depot, blacksmith shop, a saloon, hotel, meat market, and a livery stable, and eventually the Rowena Methodist Church. Fron the late 1880s to the early 1910s, East Sioux Falls, where Rowena is located, was known for quarrying pink Sioux quartzite. Many stonecutters of Welsh, Scottish, and English backgrounds were attracted to the area, and caused the East Sioux Falls and Rowena communities to flourish.

Not only was Rowena Methodist Church a go to spot in the area for people to gather and worship, the Ben Clare Methodist Church just fifteen minutes down the road, in Ben Clare, South Dakota, shared both church staff and attendees. These churches were five miles apart and for 35 years alternated worship locations. One Sunday at Rowena, the next at Ben Clare. Neither church had a full time minister and the congregations held less than 50 people combined. Rev. Jerry Stolp was the hilltop minister assigned to both churches. This means he was affiliated with multiple churches. This is popular in small towns and rural areas like Ben Clare and Rowena. Gleen Hammerly and Gary Rae were two other hilltop pastors who also lead worship occasionally at these two churches. Bill Webster was a local at the Methodist churches and became a member in 1934, explaining that “each Church is quite nice, and we hate to give up either one. We each have to give a little, but it’s worked out well.” Through community these churches stayed afloat for years, giving sermons and belonging to anyone who entered. 

The upbringing of the church took time and collaboration. The Methodist branch of Christianity first appeared in the Sioux Falls area when the Upper Iowa Conference of the Methodist Church began to minister to the region that became South Dakota in the summer of 1860. In 1871 the first Methodist church in the state was formed in Elk Point, South Dakota. The denomination spread throughout the state through circuit riding ministers. The church first planted its seed in Rowena when locals held bible study and Sunday school in their dugout basement years before the physical church ever existed. The seed began to sprout when Reverend G.D Hook, a traveling pastor, gave his first sermon in the house of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel McMackin in Rowena. For four years the Methodist congregation met and held services in the town hall, but plans to build a real building were in the works. After the church was up and running, well known people like Reverend Lewis Hartsough would pay visits to honor the church, and create and sing hymns.

Though in a rural area, the Rowena Methodist Church was not exempt from the effects of historical events and national issues. In the early 1920s the Ku Klux Klan experienced a resurgence nationwide, and South Dakota was no exception. One of the first events involving the KKK in the Siouxland area was about 30 minutes south in Canton, South Dakota, 1921 when a Klan paper was delivered around town attempting to initiate members. Throughout the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan made multiple attempts to infiltrate the many Protestant churches across South Dakota, and the Rowena Methodist Church was one of them. The Klan members rang the church bell, which was the community's fire signal, to direct the Klan's burning of the cross on a nearby hill. The KKK would often burn crosses as an intimidation tactic to scare minorities such as immigrants, Jews, and Catholics. The KKK traveled west river to the Black Hills where they murdered a local Catholic priest in Lead, South Dakota, named Father Belknap and clashed with local soldiers in 1925. By 1929 their activity in South Dakota died down drastically. 

As the years went on, the Rowena Methodist Church began to be used less frequently. This was due to dwindling visitors and congregation members. In the late 1990s, the church was only used during the summer. In 2002, after years of being a staple church to the East Sioux Falls and Rowena community, the Rowena Methodist church closed its doors permanently. The closing service took place over one hundred years after the church's first cornerstone was laid. The Webster family was there to lay the northwest cornerstone and to put the church to rest. The church bell, pews, piano, and building itself were put on auction later that fall, and the church became a landmark with a rich and heartwarming history.

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