An eclectic blend of Romanesque, Gothic, and Queen Anne architectural styles, this 1886 church survives as designer Byron Vreeland’s most significant building in Montana. Vreeland blended these styles as his architectural signature in many of his structures. The church features a barrel-vaulted wood ceiling trimmed with California redwood, a large Gothic style stained glass rose window in the entry gable above the canopy, and decorative brick work in a mouse-toothed pattern along the end elevations. The only alteration has been the removal of the bell tower. The interior features a walnut altar created from the salvaged hardwood finish of a steamboat that wrecked on the Buffalo Rapids below town about 1880. The altar is a rare survivor of steamboat architecture in Montana, the principal component of the “Wooden City” phase of building between 1878 and the early 1880s in Miles City. As the only known church designed by Vreeland, the Episcopal Church has continuously served the city for over a century and remains a unique work.
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