Apr 18, 2024 By Karen Mansfield 3 min read

For 142 years, East Buffalo United Presbyterian Church has been a house of worship without a steeple.

So members of the congregation didn’t mind a bit of rain on Thursday morning, when a steeple was placed atop the church in Buffalo Township, off state Route 40.

“This has been a dream for a long time,” said church member Dan Dorgan.

The steeple arrived Wednesday night, and the congregation sat and watched with smiles while steeplejacks from Kentucky-based Campbellsville Industries installed the steeple and cross on the roof of the church, which was built in 1882.

McAdoo’s Towing and Crane Service donated a crane and equipment for the installation.

“It was a desire of the congregation to have a steeple. The Lord in many ways has blessed us,” said the Rev. Linda Mankey, pastor. “It has been a long road. We began the project in earnest in 2017, when we began a campaign, and we’ve had a lot of people contributing to it since that time.”

The congregation held several fundraisers, including a pie auction that proved to be a sweet success. One of Mankey’s coconut cream pies – with its rich, creamy coconut custard – sold at auction for $1,100.

“When people came in that night, it wasn’t about the pies, it was about very generous people who were having fun and raising money for a good cause. There were families who were bidding against each other and raising the bids. It was a lot of fun,” said Mankey.

The cost of the steeple project was about $40,400, and included work to make sure the metal roof – which was installed in 2017 – was structurally sound to support the steeple.

The steeple is made of polished aluminum and is 35 feet high.

Mankey said the height of the steeple was determined by the height of the church from the ground to the peak of the roof.

“That’s how they determine the proportion that looks right for the church,” she said.

Church steeples are perhaps the signature physical characteristic that identifies buildings as places of worship.

“We put steeples on churches so people can identify buildings as a church,” said Mankey. “They were done more on churches in towns rather than in rural areas because even though you’d be able to see a church building in a city, you might not be able to recognize it as a church building.”

In olden times, steeples often housed a bell, which called worshippers to church services or alerted residents to emergencies or disasters.

Mankey noted with satisfaction that the steeple is visible from Interstate 70 and state Route 40.

“The building is not the church, the people make the church, but we take pride in the structure that is a place of worship, and the steeple identifies us as that,” said Mankey. “This has been a place of tradition, of loving and serving God. With the steeple, we are honoring the dream of those before us that didn’t have the financial means to do it.”