Beginning in the 1870s, the Presbyterian Church had a strong influence on Sitka, shaped by missionaries and educators.
Missionaries John Brady and Fannie Kellogg opened a Presbyterian school in April 1878. It closed in November but on April 5, 1880, Miss Olinda Austin opened a school in an old barracks, then moved to an old Russian hospital in June.
The church school also became partly a boarding school, which founder Alonzo E. Austin named Sheldon Jackson Institute after the Presbyterian missionary and educator Sheldon Jackson. In 1890-92 Jackson himself led construction of the Mission Presbyterian Church, on the school campus. It was torn down in 1963.
The First Presbyterian Church was organized in September 1884. Construction began on a church building on Seward Street in October 1887, and by June 1889 services were being held. That building was razed in 1924, and work began on a new one. (That new building was sold and converted to the Tower Apartments in 1938. The Territory of Alaska bought the building for a women’s pioneers home in 1949, and the Sitka Library Association leased it in 1957. It burned Jan. 10, 1965.)
The First Presbyterian Church building, at 505 Sawmill Creek Road, was built over several years through the congregation’s volunteer and fundraising efforts. It was dedicated Oct. 26, 1958.
It served until February 2018, when the church announced the congregation was being dissolved and the building was closing, a victim of a shrinking congregation, a division among members both at the local and national levels, and the high cost of maintaining the building and programs.
The final service in the building was held July 8, 2018.
