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Wedge Historic District Walking Tour
Item 1 of 19
This is a contributing entry for Wedge Historic District Walking Tour and only appears as part of that tour.Learn More.

The first historic building on the Wedge Historic District walking tour is located at 1619 Sixth Avenue in Tacoma. This Gothic Revival style First United Presbyterian Church was designed in 1922 by two architects who were brothers, Stanley T. and Frederic Shaw. Historically this building has been a place for the community to gather.


1619 Sixth Avenue, Tacoma

Photo of Trinity Presbyterian Church

The Gothic Revival style First United Presbyterian Church allowed for community gathering. The social hall was originally open every night of the week. The business community of Sixth Avenue district supported the church and helped the building committee raise funds. The Sunday School building originally housed twenty six classrooms with a roof garden for social functions during the months of summer. The auditorium was designed to seat four hundred community members. The large tower over the front door is a truncated, but originally was designed to have a tall steeple.

This building showcases a vast amount of complicated concrete stonework and window tracery for this building which were created by Hector MacLaine. The concrete stonework the building displays was the first of it's kind of work to be produced in the city of Tacoma, previous churches had sent to other cites for the molds. Native of Scotland Hector was trained as a Shipwright and made more than two hundred different molds, each crafted mold was turned with carpenter hand tools.

A Walking Tour of the Wedge District. Tacoma, Wa. Historic Tacoma Press, 2009.

Image Sources(Click to expand)

Tacoma Public Library (Chapin Bowen Collection TPL-6775)