Saturday, October 25, 2008

The Churches of Nanticoke, Part 3

For Part 1 of this tour, go here. For Part 2 of this tour, go here. For all parts of this tour, go here.

Next on our tour of the Churches of Nanticoke, Pennsylvania we come to a cluster of churches located in the narrow lanes just off of Main Street, four on Prospect Street and two others near the intersection of Walnut and State Streets.

The first building we come to as we move North from the vicinity of Patriot Square is a small, humble place that does not look much like a church. In fact, it was the Nanticoke Library in the decades before the Mill Memorial Library was built on the corner of Kosciuszko and Main. Located at 112 South Prospect Street, the Nanticoke Christian Fellowship serves as a place of gathering for the local Mennonite population.


Continuing North along Prospect Street we come to the Holy Name of Jesus Polish National Catholic Church, located at 98 South Prospect Street. The church's name is almost as big as the building itself!

(Fasinating note: the Polish National Catholic Church was actually initiated in the United States by a priest from Nanticoke, Rev. Francis Hodur of Holy Trinity, in 1897! This tidbit is from this website, which I found by backtracking on a SiteMeter search.)


Slightly farther North and across the street to the corner of Prospect and State Streets is the Nebo Baptist Church, one of two Baptist churches in this neighborhood. The back portion of this building, which is located at 75 South Prospect Street, was once Nanticoke's only Synagogue many years ago.


Moving back across the street we come to another Baptist church. The First English Baptist Church is located at 58 South Prospect Street.


As the map below shows, these four churches form a fairly tight cluster on Prospect Street. But there are still two more churches to see in the neighborhood.


At 120 South Walnut Street, the corner of State and Walnut Streets, we find a long, unadorned building whose only indication that it is a religious structure - aside from the small sign on the foundation indicating that it is the meeting place of the Tree of Life Christian Fellowship - are the stained glass windows set into the front and sides of the building.



Looking even further East along State Street we see a steeple rising up over a residential neighborhood. Moving closer we discover St. John's Lutheran Church, located at 231 State Street. This is actually one of two churches with very similar names - the other is St. John's Slovak Lutheran Church, located on Hanover Street near Holy Trinity Church.

This concludes the third part of our tour of the Churches of Nanticoke. In the fourth and (for now) final part of our tour we will look at the six churches located along Main Street, stretching from very close to the city limits in the East to a lone Catholic parish located beyond the city limits to the West - but one still considered very much one of the Churches of Nanticoke.




Here is a map showing the locations of the various
churches visited on this part of the tour.




Here is a larger map of the City of Nanticoke,
placing each of these first three groups in context.

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