In front of you rises Boise First United Methodist Church, the Cathedral of the Rockies, anchoring the North End district. This is the largest United Methodist Church in Boise and the largest in the Oregon-Idaho Conference, and it began here as the city’s first Methodist congregation, founded in 1872. Inside and out you can feel the gravity of community life: in 1984 the cathedral served as the location for Senator Frank Church’s funeral, a moment that echoed beyond these walls.
More recently this place has been part of another public conversation: a stained-glass window depicting Confederate general Robert E. Lee, under discussion since 2015, was the subject of a June 2020 announcement to remove it following the murder of George Floyd. That window was taken out and, in 2021, replaced with a stained-glass window depicting African-American bishop Leontine T. Kelly. Stand here and imagine the long arc from 1872 to 2021, how memory and faith meet in glass and stone.
Find the new window honoring Bishop Kelly, its glass catching light where Robert E. Lee's image once stood.