Freeze Church

Over a hundred years ago, settlers journeyed to northern Idaho with high hopes.  As homesteaders, farmers and others migrated onto the Palouse Prairie, near Deep Creek.  The soil was fertile and forests were abundant, making it easier to cut lumber for new houses and barns.  One of the saw mills in Freeze was run by Mr. Strong, who furnished the lumber for this church and helped construct it.  In time, a mill churned out the materials for a blacksmith shop, a general store and a post office.  C.E. Freeze donated the land for the church and its spire rose above the farming town in 1899.  Also in 1899 John Starner came to Freeze and applied to become the postmaster for the area, ranging from Garfield, Washington to Princeton, Idaho.  John Starner became not only postmaster but also built a general store in Freeze. 

Ed Marsh Blacksmith shop in Freeze, Idaho, 1908.

Though the Palouse country originally beckoned to miners seeking their fortunes in the 1860 gold rush, farmers stayed on for the long haul.  Eventually Freeze boasted a population of 200 hardy souls, many of them crowding into the Freeze Church each Sunday to sing Rock of Ages and pray for good harvests.  The adjacent cemetery tells its own personal stories of Freeze, Idaho, and C.E. Freeze’s wife and daughter were buried there in those pioneer years.

The Freeze Church in Freeze, Idaho, no date, courtesy of Velda Starner Walker.

Once Potlatch Lumber Company constructed its giant white pine mill in 1905, the town of Freeze, its farms, businesses, and smaller mom-and-pop mills began to fade.  In 1907 the post office burned and in 1908 the store burned.  The destruction of these two structures combined with the emergence of the company town of Potlatch spelled the end of the line for the city of Freeze.  Yet believers used the chapel regularly until the 1980’s, enduring its lack of insulation and aging wood stove.  The standard joke of course was that you could freeze at Freeze!

General store and post office at Freeze, Idaho.  The Grocery store is the main building, the post office is the attached building on the right.  This photo was taken between 1899 and 1907.  Courtesy of Velda Starner Walker.

Over the years, the Freeze Church has been home to several congregations, and many weddings, funerals and celebrations have taken place there.  The building is so prominent that National Geographic featured it in its pages in June of 1982, and Country Woman magazine pictured the church surrounded by bright yellow canola blossoms on its 2003 calendar cover.  The building carries much historical significance and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Sketch by Albert Clausen as he remembers Freeze, Idaho.

References:

Cook, Russ, "Early and Disappearing Communities in Latah County Idaho," (informally published, Latah County Historical Society, 1995).

Renk, Nancy, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form: Freeze Church, January 3, 1990.

Ross, Opal Lambert, Landed Gentry 1871-1978 (Farmington: Washington, Opal Lambert Ross, 1979), 14-21.