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Historic place

Chapel in the Hills

3788 Chapel Lane, Rapid City, SD

An exact hand-carved replica of Norway's 850-year-old Borgund stave church, built in the Black Hills in 1969 as the on-site home of a national Lutheran radio broadcast ministry.

📅 1969–present🏛️ ChapelStill hereBuilt 1969
Open on the mapSlide back to 1969
Chapel in the Hills, 3788 Chapel Lane, Rapid City, SD
Chapel in the Hills, Rapid City · Jake DeGroot, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The story

Chapel in the Hills was built as the broadcast home of "Lutheran Vespers," a nationally syndicated radio ministry. Organizers obtained blueprints from Norway's Department of Antiquities to build an exact replica of the Borgund stave church (c. 1150), complete with dragon-head gables carved by Norwegian woodcarver Erik Fridstrøm and local craftsman Helge Christiansen. It was dedicated July 6, 1969, and added to the National Register in 2012. The grounds include a relocated 1876 pioneer log cabin.

Everything that was here

Did you know?

It's a certified exact replica built from blueprints supplied by Norway's own Department of Antiquities.
It was purpose-built as the broadcast home of the syndicated "Lutheran Vespers" radio program.
The grounds include a genuine 1876 pioneer log cabin, relocated there as a museum.

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Sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapel_in_the_Hills