Today’s mystery is a bright structure alongside a highway. Figure out first what it is, then where it is and send your idea to elliott@brack.net, and include your hometown.
Last week, Susan McBrayer of Sugar Hill not only recognized the Mystery Photo as the Chapel In the Hills in Rapid City, South Dakota, she sent along a photograph of the structure on which the Chapel was modeled: “This is not a rainy area. The chapel is affiliated with the Lutheran Church and is an exact replica of a chapel in Norway, the Borgund Stavkirke, which looks like some kind of fairy tale or witch’s house.” The photograph came from Helen Rocquemore of Lawrenceville.
Others spotting it included George Graf, Palmyra, Va.; and Bob Foreman of Grayson, who said:
“I am not going to pass up a church building. That is the Chapel in the Hills, Rapid City, South Dakota. It is an exact replica of the Borgund Stavkirke, built around A.D. 1150, located near Laedral, Norway.”
Stave church near Borgund, Norway
Allan Peel of San Antonio, Tex. gave some additional detail about the South Dakota chapel: “In the 1960’s, the originator and preacher of the Lutheran Vespers radio hour, Dr. Harry R. Gregerson (1899 – 1992), was looking to expand the scope of his popular radio ministry. Since many of the original settlers of the Dakotas and surrounding states were Norwegian Lutherans, Gregerson decided to build the church in the style of a ‘stave-church’, typically built in Norway from the 11th to the 13th century, where the walls were constructed of upright planks or staves. Groundbreaking for the Chapel in the Hills began in 1968, and was completed in July 1969. It continued to serve the Lutheran Vespers until 1975 when the radio program was moved to Minneapolis, home of the American Lutheran Church at the time. The Chapel in the Hills was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 7, 2012.”
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