The pews of historic Union Church may soon be filled again, once the Orion Historical Society finishes an interior renovation of the 1854-erected structure.
Listed on the National Registry of Historic Buildings, the church is located at Broadway and Church Street in the Village of Lake Orion, but is owned by Orion Township.
The Orion Historical Society (OHS) first put together a committee to help oversee renovation of the building in 1995. Ten years later, renovation of the interior is finally set to begin on Aug. 4.
‘We are going to go in and remove everything that was added to the original structure,? said Chuck Viers, chair of the Union Church Governing Board, the committee put together to oversee the renovation.
‘We’re taking out the choir pews, the baptismal and the stage in the front,? he said. ‘We’ll be removing the dropped ceiling and modern light fixtures.
‘We’re also removing the fiber board that was put on the walls,? said Viers. ‘We found some stenciling under that. We’ll be going back to plaster walls.?
So far, the OHS has completed a reinforcement for the floor boards, which will allow volunteers to be able to enter the church to help with the interior renovation; and have repaired and repainted the church’s steeple.
‘The object is to get it back to its original shape,? said Viers. ‘So far, the historical society has been able to do the work with volunteers.?
When the project is complete, the OHS hopes to use the church as a place for weddings, recitals, club meetings and other large gatherings, such as village and township meetings.
‘We want to make it something we can be proud of,? Viers said.
The OHS has one stumbling block to overcome; it has been hard to locate photographs of what the church used to look like inside.
‘We’re looking for pictures of the interior of the church, any pictures that people might have,? said Viers. ‘We’re sure people were married here, and attended other events where pictures must have been taken.?
According to Viers, so far the renovation project hasn’t cost OHS that much, but they are on a 50-50 matching program with Orion Township to come up with funds to help with such things as adding a heating and cooling system.
‘There isn’t one now,? he said. ?(The OHS) has raised money.?
It’s also unclear what the extent of the work will be that has to be done to restore the interior once the additions have been removed.
‘Right now, we know the church was raised up from the basement with a small altar. Besides that, what else is there?? said Viers. ‘We don’t know. That’s why we need the photographs.?
OHS is hoping to restore the interior to what it looked like when the church was first built.
‘There was an addition put on the back of the church, but we don’t know any of those dates,? Viers said. ‘There are no township records.?
The pews currently inside the church, which were added some time after the church was first built, will be kept, as well as the original stained glass windows and tin ceiling.
‘We know the basement was used for a school,? Viers said.
According to The Fundamental Fellowship, printed in Aug. 15, 1954, a basement was put under the building in 1944 as space for the rapidly growing Sunday School.
The name ‘Union Church? comes from the joining of two separate churches into one building, First Baptist Church of Lake Orion (the original building with the steeple) and Emmanuel Baptist Church (which today houses the Orion Senior Center).
The two congregations merged in 1953, and continued as the First Baptist Church of Lake Orion.