THE FIRST TWO churches in Seattle were both Methodist, although one was Methodist Episcopalian and the other Methodist Protestant. The Methodists had split in 1830 over how much power to give bishops. In 1865, when the Methodist Protestants of Seattle built their church, the primary difference between it and the other was not doctrine but color. The first church was white and the new MP sanctuary was painted brown. From then on they were known simply as the white and brown churches.

Here, however, the brown church has lightened up. Actually, this is the third "permanent" home for the MP congregation. The original brown church at the northwest corner of Second Avenue and Madison Street was replaced in 1883 with an enlarged sanctuary. Its new stone veneer skin, however, did not save it from the "Great Fire" of 1889.

This is the parish that the congregation, after worshiping for a year in tents, built in 1890 at the southeast corner of Pine Street and Third Avenue.

Clark Davis became pastor in 1885. He bought the lot and built this church for about $40,000. Next door he raised a comfortable parsonage for himself, his wife Cleo and their two sons. The Gothic Revival sanctuary could seat 1,000 and often did. Clark was a "go-getter" and in 1896, after resigning his pastorate, he went for and won the jobs of registrar at the University of Washington and secretary to its Board of Regents.

The Pine Street Regrade (1903-06) lowered this corner 10 feet and converted the church basement into its first floor. With regrades on Third Avenue and Denny Hill coming at them, the parishioners sold their corner for $100,000 and moved in 1906 to a new stone church on Capitol Hill. As soon as the Methodists moved out, the Third Avenue Theater moved in.
 

Built in 1890, the Methodist Protestant Church at the southeast corner of Third Avenue and Pine Street was razed when it was still young for the 1913 construction of a commercial building. There, under golden arches, countless cheap burgers have been sold. Now the nonprofit Housing Resources Group (HRG) is replacing the upper floors of the Third and Pine Building with 65 units of low-income housing and renaming it the Gilmore Building after John Gilmore, the retired president of the Downtown Seattle Association who helped found HRG in 1980.

Paul Dorpat specializes in historical photography and has published several books on early Seattle.