Warren H. Hayes - Church Architecture

Church Architecture

In 1997, Don Ramsey, then Associate Professor and Director of the Architecture Program at North Dakota State University visited the Presbyterian Historical Society and studied various annual reports of the Board of Church Erection for the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. which he described as a "bonanza" of late 19th century Protestant church architecture. He put together a list of Hayes designs and reported to the Hayes Research Project that "Among work of literally dozens of architects...", that he found 9 designs and renderings by Warren H. Hayes, as follows:

Eighth Annual Report (1878)

• "Rural Chapel"
• Design #4. pp. 21–23.
• Design #5. pp. 23–24.
• "First ... Church", Walla Walla, W.T.
• Design #6. pp. 23–26.

Fourteenth Annual Report (1884)

• Untitled
• Untitled
• Untitled
• Untitled

Twenty-first Annual Report (1891)

• "Le Mars", Iowa

Often these Hayes' designs were accompanied by a note ("Plans, detailed drawing,specifications,and form of contract all complete, ready to be sent, by mail, on receipt of $5.00") Hayes also advertised in the Presbyterian "Assembly Herald".

Hayes had an extensive relationship with the Congregational Church Building Society, . His advertisements appeared frequently in its "Church + Building Quarterly" and on occasions there appear announcements regarding various churches Hayes' had designed. St. Louis Compton Hill Congregational Church Morning Sun Iowa Congregational Church; Plymouth Congregational Church, Oshkosh, Wisc.; Eagle Grove Iowa Congregational Church; First Congregational Church in Salt Lake City, Utah; Wausau, Wisc. As noted by Jeanne Halgren Kilde in her book When Church Became Theater: The Transformation of Evangelical Architecture ... (2002) (p. 105) " Hayes gained the imprimatur of the National Council of Congregational Churches during the 1890s when he was the architect most often featured in the Congregational Yearbook."

Similarly, Hayes advertised in the Baptist Home Monthly, and had many commissions for Baptist churches. Sommerville, Mass. Union Baptist Church

The Methodist Church likewise published Church Plan catalogs

In effect these church building societies were putting together "plan books" or plan exemplars and sending them to their members on a regular basis. While Hayes is best known for some of the larger churches he designed, many of the participants in these building societies were small churches, which logically gravitated to such 'off the shelf design'.

Often local architects would use these plan book designs, or would be required by local ordinance, custom, or oversight duties to adopt the plans as their own.

An example of this approach is the construction of the Congregational Church of St. Joseph,Missouri. While Hayes designed the church, --- as evidenced by his rendering in the October 1890 edition of the "Church + Building Quarterly" of the American Congregational Union. — all of the public filings, and the all important architect's signature and seal were done by local St. Joseph, MO. professionals. See also Hayes advertisement including a rendering of the St. Joseph Mo Congregational Church.

This process of the use of plan books, and transmission via the mails of standard designs, together with local oversight often can cause great confusion in giving the correct attribution to a particular church. This appears especially to be the case with Hayes, and it may be that literally hundreds of churches built during the 1880s and 1890s are his design. Indeed, if one finds a church 'diagonal auditorium' design of that vintage, with curved floors for better acoustics, it could well be a Hayes' church.