Kendrick, Nez Perce County

• Grant: 2024 – Stained-Glass Window Restoration

Location: 33223 Leland Road, Kendrick, ID 83537

Leland, located about a mile southeast of Kendrick, was once home to a pair of competing Methodist congregations. In the 1890s, Leland Methodist Church South and Leland Methodist Church North were across the street from one another, yet the divide between them may as well have been miles apart due to lingering opinions on the Civil War and slavery. By the 1920s, the original church disbanded, and most folks crossed the road to join the neighboring church. With a larger congregation to house and an aging building on their hands, Reverand Howard Graybeal led the effort to construct the church building we still see to this day.

It was built completely by volunteers, and the funds for materials and such were raised by The Women’s Missionary Society. The church was officially dedicated on December 17th, 1933 – just in time for Christmas. The four Doric columns and gorgeous stained-glass windows were originally from a church in Peach, Washington, which would soon be underwater following the construction of Grand Coulee Dam. The church thrived as the center of social life in Leland, with a well-attended Sunday School, an active Epworth League for teens, multiple worship services, prayer meetings, and they even published the monthly magazine, ‘The Leland Broadcaster’. Sadly, as Leland itself began to fade, so, too, did the congregation, and the last service (for a while), was held on April 20, 1971, and was officially shuttered after the last bazaar on October 19, 1972.

That is until Paster Jim Soyk resurrected the church in December of 2001, breathing new life into the vacant building. Despite being located in a ghost town, the congregation has grown from less than a dozen to a packed house every Sunday over the last 20+ years. While most of the church remained in surprisingly good repair despite the neglect, the stained-glass windows did not fair quite as well. Restoration of the Povey Brothers of Portland windows (often referred to as the “Tiffany of the Northwest”) began in the fall of 2024 and were successfully restored and reinstalled in the summer of 2025. In addition to these famously pedigreed windows, Leland Pioneer Community Church is also home to a baby grand piano that once belonged to Cole Porter.