File:Façade of the First Congregational United Church of Christ, Angola, New York - 20230402.jpg

English: As seen on an April 2023 afternoon, the handsome façade of the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Angola, New York is the only element of the original building to have survived the fire that consumed its remainder in 1968. It's a particularly early and high-style example of the Colonial Revival that consists of a full-fledged Classical temple front, comprising a hexastyle Doric portico, architrave, pediment punctuated by a roundel window, and louvered cupola (not original). Note also the Roman latticework adorning the transom above the main entrance. First Congregational traces its history back to 1857, when the pastoral team at the Congregational church in the neighboring hamlet of Evans Center began holding informal meetings at the schoolhouse in Angola as a way of testing the waters to see if the prospect of establishing an independent congregation was viable. Discovering that it was, the Angola church was formally constituted six years later, with the thirteen founding members soon joined by some thirty additional congregants who heretofore had worshipped in Evans Center. Two years later, the original church building, of which this façade made up the most visible part, was constructed at a cost of $7,000. First Congregational then embarked on a continuous and relatively uneventful course of growth, punctuated by occasional building expansions (including a 1920s-era fellowship hall that is the other extant portion of the complex that predates the fire, but is not visible from this angle) and denominational mergers (it became an affiliate of the United Church of Christ in 1957 upon Congregationalism's merger with the Evangelical & Reformed faith) and culminating in a four-day centennial celebration in 1963 that was intended to double as the kickoff to a multiyear process of still more improvements to the building. Sadly, it was these lofty plans that indirectly led to the fire that mostly destroyed the original building in October 1968, occasioned by construction workers who, ironically enough, were using a blowtorch to install a fire escape onto the rear of the building. The pastor and a number of volunteers were luckily able to salvage valuables including church records, the carillon, and various Bibles and other effects in the hour or so before the flames and smoke completely over took the building. In the end, $200,000 of damage was wrought and the church was reduced to its shell; a dramatic photograph that made the front page of that week's Evans Journal captured the moment the steeple collapsed into the sanctuary along with the rest of the roof. Undeterred, and with a healthy insurance payout now in the coffers, the church immediately sent to the work of building anew: it was only half a year later, in April 1969, that architect Alfred Marzec unveiled his rendering for the building in its present form, which included both a new sanctuary as well as a rear annex housing the church office. Moreover, the fact that the original façade was salvaged and incorporated into the structure testifies to the status of Shelgren, Patterson & Marzec as among the first Western New York architectural practices to champion historic preservation and adaptive reuse. The building was dedicated in September 1970 in a daylong ceremony attended by a veritable Who's Who of higher-ups in the local and national United Church of Christ organization.