Sweet Community Church
Sweet, Gem County
- Grant: 2010, 2024 – Steeple and Belltower Restoration
Location: 7200 Sweet Ola Highway, Sweet, ID 83670
Sweet, like many towns in the Payette Valley, grew quickly as the towns became supply centers for the mines and more permanent farming settlements. In particular, the Buffalo Hump Mining District, located north of the Salmon River, brought more traffic along the Payette River. The town was named after Ezekiel Sweet, a native Ohioan who first emigrated to California, then came to Idaho in 1877. He worked as a ranch hand near Squaw Creek, a tributary north of the Payette River, and filed a claim for a homestead nearby, which would shortly become home to the post office, which was the first in the area.
The “Sweet” post office became a gathering place and was used for voting and other community activities. A small village started growing, fed by the anticipated mining boom at Thunder Mountain to the northeast, burgeoning sawmills at Dry Buck, and eventual
construction (1911) of the Idaho Northern Railway along the Payette River. By 1900, Sweet’s population had grown to 300. Town businesses included a bank, meat packing and cold storage plant, general store, butcher shop, grange hall, and three saloons. A small school was also built near town
For much of this time, however, the Sweet community went without a permanent church. In the 1860s and 1870s, local residents
conducted religious services in their homes. At the 1884 General Methodist Conference, several ministers presented the need to develop more Methodist churches in Idaho. Boise, Moscow, Lewiston, and Wallace had already established Methodist congregations, but smaller towns lacked ministerial services. Church circuits developed which averaged fifty miles in length, with a preacher serving four or five small communities. Sweet was incorporated into the route overseen by a Methodist minister based in Emmett in the 1880s, rode a circuit to surrounding villages, including Sweet.
By the beginning of the 20th century, Sweet area residents decided their community was large enough to support its own church building. In 1903 the Millers, a local ranching family, donated land near the Sweet townsite for its first permanent church and parsonage. Funds were raised by the congregation, and lots of local sawmills and suppliers provided materials at a discount. No records of building plans for the Sweet Methodist Episcopal Church could be located, but some of the local residents were experienced builders from the Midwest familiar with traditional Gothic Revival styling commonly used for rural Protestant churches. Church members such as the Badleys, Gatfields and Nolands (the Nolands constructed many area buildings) aided the construction, which cost approximately, while A. H. White papered and painted the church, which was described as “roomy and inviting” by a 1905 Emmett newspaper.
The 1905 dedication of the Sweet church marked a milestone for the community. The town had grown from a frontier settlement to a “civilized” community, with all of the required social, educational, and religious institutions. The Sweet church dedication became a regional event; many residents from surrounding towns came to the ceremony, and Emmett’s Methodist Minister Pastor Deane delivered the dedicatory sermon. Attendees donated funds to pay off the church’s mortgage, which Mrs. Hixon ceremoniously burned later that day. An Emmett Index newspaper article underscored the importance of a permanent church building to Sweet’s community
standing:
“The building, aside from its influence on the moral and spiritual life of the town, is also an addition to the town from a business point of view…The coming of a church [to frontier communities] has in this case been quickly followed by better citizens, more progress and better government….The erection of the first church in Sweet marks an epoch in the business and spiritual life of our sister town and its rich prosperous farming community.”
The church’s construction instigated other community improvements, such as the construction of sidewalks running the length of the town. In a rare display of nightlife/church cooperation, one of the town’s saloons also helped support the church by donating a piano in 1909. The Sweet church served the spiritual needs of the entire community until the 1930s, with Catholics, LDS, Seventh-day Adventists and others using the building or attending Methodist services. It also became the primary meeting space in the community, hosting innumerable secular as well as sacred activities.
The Great Depression and the construction of a competing institution (Sweet Assemble of God) nearly conspired to prematurely shutter the Sweet Community Church in the 1930s. The Sweet Church Women’s Auxiliary played an important role in keeping the church and
community functioning throughout its history, but were especially important during the lean years from the 1930s-1950s. The original Ladies’ Aid Society did sewing projects, held food sales, and put on bazaars to raise funds for church activities and missions. They
also cooked hot lunch for the schools, helped with farm sales, put on election day dinners, and held services even as the congregation dwindled to the single digits.
In 1958, Sweet Methodists merged their congregation with the Emmett church, and an energetic young minister brought new life to the newly unified congregations. Since the Emmett church’s building had already been shuttered, the revitalized congregation decided to make some improvements to Sweet building. New ceilings, lights and wallboard were installed in the church’s interior, and a concrete-block furnace room was added to the north side of the church. In 1958, the first wedding in fifty years was held at the Sweet Methodist Church, and it continues to be a popular wedding venue due to the picturesque rural setting and traditional stylings.
After 90 years the Sweet Methodist Episcopal Church remains active as an important community institution, serving various needs of the surrounding rural population. As the economic fortunes of Sweet waxed and waned, local families worked hard to keep their social and educational institutions alive, and the Sweet church evokes a sense of continuity in a rapidly changing world.
The United Methodist Church was built in 1905 and is in the National Register of Historic Places as Sweet Methodist Episcopal Church.
