Winona Lake Historic District, Historic district in Winona Lake, Indiana, United States.
Winona Lake Historic District occupies the eastern shore of Winona Lake in Kosciusko County, Indiana. Its buildings date from the Chautauqua and Bible-conference years, among them the Winona Hotel (originally Eagle Lake Hotel), Westminster Hall, Mount Memorial (built as the Free Methodist Publishing House), the Administration Building, the Beyer Home, Killarney Castle (Solomon Dickey's house), the Railroad Power Station, the Church of the Good Shepherd and the Swiss Terrace homes.
J. F. Beyer and his brothers bought the 160-acre tract around Eagle Lake in 1888 and founded Spring Fountain Park, a Chautauqua resort with a race track, roller coaster, cyclorama, hotel and auditorium. The Presbyterian Church of Indiana bought the grounds in 1894 through Solomon C. Dickey, who renamed the lake Winona and started Bible conferences in 1896. Grace College and Theological Seminary purchased the grounds in 1968 and took on the assembly's debts.
The lake was renamed Winona and the Winona Assembly and Summer School founded in 1895, with Bible conferences starting in 1896. Presidents of the Assembly included H. J. Heinz and John Studebaker, and evangelists J. Wilbur Chapman and William Biederwolf led the conferences. Billy Sunday moved here in 1911, and his song leader Homer Rodeheaver followed.
The district lies along the eastern shore of Winona Lake, and its historic buildings are clustered close enough to cover on foot. Grace College and Theological Seminary has owned the grounds since 1968, so several structures, including Mount Memorial and the Administration Building, are campus buildings rather than public sites. The Billy Sunday Home is preserved as a museum.
The Beyer brothers, who owned a wholesale dairy business in nearby Warsaw, bought the 160-acre tract in 1888 because its artesian springs could supply natural refrigeration. The springs that cooled their dairy also became the foundation of Spring Fountain Park, the resort and Chautauqua site they laid out on the land.
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