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Urban Hike History
updated: Mar 20, 2011, 1:13 PM

by Neal Graffy XNGH

A few photos and additional history for the Anacapa Street Urban Hike...

The building at 1435 Anacapa Street is well over 100 years old and has probably served more congregations than any building in Santa Barbara. I'm not positive but it may have been built as early as 1891 by the Unitarian Church at 1316 State between Arlington Avenue and Victoria Street. In 1902 the building was purchased by the Christian Science community. Around 1910 they moved it to the SW corner of Anacapa and Micheltorena and added the "wings" flanking the original center structure.

By 1934 the new Christian Science church (First Church of Christ, Scientist) at Santa Barbara and Valerio was completed and over the next three decades their old church served a number of beliefs - The Church of the Nazarene, Church of the Open Bible, Institute of Religious Science, Temple Baptist Church, Catholic Daughters of American and the Church of Religious Science.

And finally in the early 1960s it was occupied by an architecture firm which was quite in keeping with the building's spiritual history - as any contractor will tell you, "architects think they're god."

Christian Science Church - 1910 "Sometime after the 1910 move to 1435 Anacapa Street."

Stewart House - 1890 "The house at 2024 Anacapa was built by Milton Stewart around 1888. Note that back in 1890 when this photo was taken, there were open porches on the first, second and third floors. In later years when the home was converted into apartments these were closed in to add more room for the tenants."

All photos from the Neal Graffy Collection

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