Grace Universalist Church, 1876

It is not surprising that the capacity of the 1866 chapel soon became too small in the growing city. We expect that the ministry of Eliza Tupper Wilkes until 1874 significantly contributed to that growth.

George H. Deer served as our minister from 1875 until 1881. During his tenure the congregation planned a new church on the same downtown lot, adjacent to the Chapel. Grace Church remained in service for nearly 40 years.

In her autobiography, Neta Case states that her Sunday school class as a child was held in the choir loft due to lack of space. The bulletin boards in our current Walden Lane church Commons were first built a dividers to separate the RE classes in Grace Church.

First Universalist Church was dedicated on June 26, 1916. The site of Grace Church and the Chapel was sold to Mayo Clinic, where their "red brick" building was erected in 1914. This site was repurposed in 1928 for a new Mayo Clinic building designed by Dr. Henry Plummer. The "1928 Building" was later renamed to the "Plummer Building," as we know it today.