She and her mother went to the church almost every week to do the upkeep. “My grandparents are buried out there,” Hamilton said. Hamilton remembers as a young girl visiting the cemetery and mowing the lawn or working on the church building. However, unlike many of those shrinking towns, Forest Grove was able to keep its small church alive through the dedication of the community.Ĭhurch services continued into the 1920s and 1930s, but the church was used sparingly during WWII and then seldom in the 1950s and 1960s, when the people who originally pushed to have the church built had passed away, Cox said.Įven when services were being held infrequently, the community continued upkeep at the church and the surrounding cemetery. The population shrunk just like it did in farming and ranching communities across Montana. Families slowly moved away and local businesses closed up shop. The railroad town boomed in 1919 with more than 800 residents and a main street lined with businesses.Īfter World War II, though, many of those residents felt the pull of larger towns and the jobs they offered. The railroad agreed to purchase a site for the church and its accompanying cemetery near the center of the valley, and moved it to where the building stands today. “They offered to either buy (the church) and build us a new one or move it,” said Bobbie Cox, whose husband grew up attending the Forest Grove Church. Paul’s Episcopal Church first opened its doors, nestled near the north rimrocks of Forest Grove.Īround 1912, the railroad started working on plans to build a rail line through Forest Grove and wanted it to pass through the church’s location. “In time, enough cash and pledges were secured from stockmen, cowboys, farmers, ranch hands, sheepherders, etc., to assure the building of the church,” Hamilton wrote. The services inspired a group of local ladies to form an association to raise the funds necessary to build a church. “They were always well attended and appreciated by the residents of the community, regardless of their religious affiliation,” wrote Jody Hamilton, who sits on the board of the Forest Grove Cemetery Association.Įventually an Episcopal church was established in Lewistown, and the pastor who formed that church started giving services in Forest Grove regularly. Without a church in the area, a traveling Episcopalian bishop made his way to Forest Grove once a year to hold a service in the old school house or in someone’s home.

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