NEWS
Old Clifty Log Church Shows Staying Power
Nestled in a wooded valley near Bloomfield, Old Clifty Church is one of the earliest surviving buildings in Green County and one of the state’s oldest log churches still in its original location. Although no longer used for religious services, the 1867 church has remained in continuous use since its construction.
A Place in History
The history of Old Clifty Church begins in 1858, when Daniel and Irenna Dobbins deeded one acre of land to a Methodist congregation to build a new church. Workers felled white poplar trees from the area and used the pioneer practice of stacking and joining hewn timbers, filling the horizontal gaps with a mortar-like substance called “chinking.”
The outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 forced the men to abandon their tools and materials, leaving the building only partially complete. Once the soldiers returned home after the war, construction resumed and progressed quickly.
Old Clifty housed a series of denominations over the following decades. By the turn of the twentieth century, it had fallen into such disrepair the congregation suspended all services. After a restoration in 1908, the church became a non-denominational facility and a frequent destination for picnics, meetings, and events, including an annual homecoming to celebrate the historic building’s construction.
In the 1940s, the nonprofit Old Clifty Memorial Association formed to acquire the church and embarked on a second major restoration. Since then, the association has spearheaded several projects devoted to preserving the building, including a new period-appropriate cedar shingle roof made possible by a $10,000 grant from the Efroymson Family Fund of the Central Indiana Community Foundation.
In addition to recommending the Old Clifty Memorial Association for the Efroymson grant, Indiana Landmarks’ Western Regional Office is helping the organization nominate the church to the National Register of Historic Places. For more information, contact Tommy Kleckner in our Western office, 812-232-4534, tkleckner@indianalandmarks.org.
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