Epworth-Euclid Church, Cleveland, Ohio

Approaching its 90^th year of serving its congregation, the ‘Oil-Can’ Church, erected in 1928, regally presides over a key intersection in Cleveland’s east-side University Circle area.

This modern stylized adaptation of Gothic church motifs (bearing some resemblance to the famed French landmark of Mont St. Michel) is formally titled The Epworth-Euclid United Methodist Church. Of a design originated by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, but completed by the locally renowned architectural firm of Walker & Weeks after Goodhue’s 1924 death, the church is easily identified by it’s prominent copper-clad spire and octagonal turret, rising from a composition of golden Plymouth granite. Adorning the structure’s exterior are its grand eastern rose window, tower lancet windows, arched transept windows, and decorative sculptural works by New Yorker Leo Friedlander.

The believers that erected this religious edifice comprised a merger between two earlier area congregations. The Euclid Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church originated at the city’s Doan’s Corners (Euclid Avenue at East 105^th to East 107^th Streets) in the early 1830s, and by the early 1900s had successively occupied several different church structures in the area.

Meanwhile, the Epworth Memorial Methodist Episcopal congregation had evolved — through various name changes, mergers and church building relocations — from the Erie Street Methodist Episcopal Church (which originated near what is today Progressive Field). By 1920, the two primary congregations merged as The Epworth-Euclid United Methodist Church, and began planning their new church in University Circle.

The church’s roof is supported by 4 great arches, and a magnificent 80-rank echo organ, one of just a few in the country, was installed within the spire during construction. That organ saw renovation in 1992.

Today, Epworth-Euclid’s distinctive patina-green-over-gold form marks the western edge of University Circle, just across Martin Luther King Boulevard from the Wade Lagoon, The Cleveland Art Museum and Severance Hall.