Georgetown Time Machine: Unidentified Church

This week for Georgetown Time Machine, I’m exploring another photo from the DC Historical Society. It is of an unidentified church at an unknown location. The only thing the record can say is that it’s in Georgetown and from between 1895 to 1905.

I love a challenge like this, so I jumped right into trying to figure out which church this is and where. I checked a couple existing spots that could match the photo in terms of location near a corner like this, most notably St. John’s. I knew the church looked different in some if its earlier iterations, but unfortunately that wasn’t it. Here’s what St. John’s used to look like around the time of the photo above:

I checked out a couple of the other smaller churches, but none were near a corner like this.

But then I think I found the answer: Georgetown Lutheran. Here is a photo from the church’s website showing an earlier version of its santuary:

Here is more information about the building:

In 1867, a third sanctuary was built, this time a one-story brick building. The church was larger than the previous ones, and housed a school until 1870. School was taught in German, but in 1870 the congregation decided to end the use of German language and close the school. Georgetown Lutheran Church was re-incorporated as an English-speaking church, and the congregation set out to renovate the sanctuary, install gas lighting, and repaint the building. A rededication ceremony took place in June 1870.

The facade is not exactly the same in the two pictures, but the church’s history describes the construction of an outside vestibule, which could explain the different entrances.

So if I’m correct, the photo on the top was taken from the intersection of Volta Place looking north, with Wisconsin Ave. on the right. A map from the time supports that alignment:

Mystery solved, I think!